House of Discoveries
by BeBe says hi
Summary: Bri is the new girl in town. She got kicked out of her old school because she was black mailed, and has sort of a bad rep. But, she never imagined the surprises Anubis house has for her. Surprises that could lead ultimatly to death. Fabian/Nina Jerome/OC
1. Chapter 1

**BeBe: I don't own House of Anubis.**

* * *

Bri stared up at the sorority house, and groaned. Great. A new year, in a new country, with new people she'd never met before. Could life get any worse?

And in Britain, for God's sake! Why in all the did she have to be sent to a school with tea loving British twits? She'd rather die!

Oh, well. Bri thought to herself. I guess there's nothing I can do, now. I'm just gonna have to endure these British geeks for the next year, until I get back into Washington.

She'd been kicked out of Washington high in America for a prank she didn't even pull. Her friends, George and Jack had, yet somehow, she was the one who had gotten blamed. Bri wasn't sure how, though.

Oh, wait, she did know. She turned herself in, so that this exact thing wouldn't happen to them. Man, those girls better be wallowing in their guilt, right now. Otherwise this whole thing would've been for nothing.

Bri took a deep breath, and clutched her suitcase closer to her hip, before entering the house. It looked to be fairly big, from the inside, maybe two or three floors with a 100-200 square foot base. Maybe, if she was very careful, she wouldn't have to deal with any of the tea loving hippies while she was here.

Of course, though, they'd probably come looking for her, trying to be nice and "welcome" the new girl into the house. Which was why Bri had put on this whole gothic bad girl façade, hoping that that would keep any unwanted visitors away.

Her and Alex had gone shopping the day before departure for these new clothes, and makeup, because Alex hated Brits as much as Bri did. Now, instead of looking like the misbehaving little angel she was, she looked like well, Lola on her first episode of _Zoey 101._

Her blonde hair was now crimped and pulled into a side pony tail, she had a black belly shirt on, with a skirt that was so short, it almost wasn't even there. She had dusted her dusk blue eyes until they looked dark, and mysterious, and she was careful to keep a look of not caring on her face. Hopefully, that would work.

Bri took a deep breath, and went to enter the house. She'd already had a virtual tour, and so was confident she'd be able to find her room, fast enough. All the other kids were still at school, so if she was quick, and light on her feet, she just might make it before they got home.

She turned towards the familiar stair case, and was about halfway up when she heard a voice from below/behind her.

"You must be the new student."

Bri groaned, softly, at getting caught. She could tell by the voice, that it was an older man, probably the head of the house. Oh, well, better him then one of those roommate twits she was sure to be meeting, soon.

She turned around to see a middle aged guy with thinning brown hair, and a brown beard-mustache thingy mahoober. Bri didn't know why, but she didn't like the looks of him.

The man looked her up and down, not checking her out, more of like a… glance at her clothes. He sneered, and went back to looking her in the eye. Bri couldn't help but get the feeling that he wasn't happy with seeing her. And not just because of the way she looked. Something else, something... deeper than that, though she didn't spend much time dwelling on the thought.

"Well," he said, "I can see how you got kicked out of your other school."

Bri worked to keep the 'I-couldn't-care-less' look on her face, as she spoke to him. "Well, _that's _one I've never heard before." She kept her voice sarcastic, and chewed on her berry flavored gum, rolling her eyes.

The man glared at her, "Just remember, Miss. Faye, we take discipline very seriously around here. I suggest not stepping out of line."

Bri pretended to examine her nails, nonchalantly. "Whatever." She sighed, when on the inside, she was really freaking out. She normally didn't act _this _bad! I mean, she did act bad, but not in front of grown ups!

"The others will be home in a half hour. I want you down to dinner at precisely 6:00, not a minute late." The man-Bri just remembered his name was Victor-went on, as if she hadn't spoken.

Bri snorted, and turned her back on him. "I'll be there when I'll be there." And she left.

Once she was out of sight, she ran into the first room she saw, and collapsed onto the floor, breathing hard. This was going to be tougher than she had thought. Every part of her was screaming at her to go back down there and apologize.

Gulping, loudly, she stood up, and scanned the room. It wasn't hers, and she didn't spend anymore time in there to really soak anything else in. She got out, and strolled down to her own room at the end of the hall.

She looked herself once over in her full length mirror that the movers must've brought the day before, and decided that maybe she went a bit too far. Maybe she could make them stay out of her way without being _such _a bad girl.

Bri sighed, and spit out her gum, before switching her clothes for a black and red halter top, with a black salsa dress length spaghetti strap underneath. She then pulled on webbed tights, and a black button up vest-which she didn't button-and glanced herself over again, in the mirror. Now, she didn't look as bad chick as before.

A knock at her door brought her out of her reverie. Bri glanced herself once more over in the mirror, before eyeing her actual clothes that she had packed to make a good show for her mother. She could change fast, and could try and deal with the British people instead.

Okay, she thought, if this proves to be too hard, you can change back in a week. Just keep the charade up until then.

She went over, and opened the door to reveal a tan girl with dark brown hair. Bri put an annoyed expression on her face, at the girl who smiled at her.

"Hi!" she said, cheerfully, in a nauseating British accent.. "I'm Mara."

"And I'm getting sick." Bri sighed, making sure to catch the girl's eye. She leant up against the door frame, and pretended to examine her nails, again.

"Um… okay." Mara murmured, a bit nervously. "I was just coming to invite you to our house, Brittany!"

"Call me Bri." Bri sighed, and clucked the heels of her combat boots together.

"Well… um, dinner's almost ready, and I was wondering if you needed someone to escort you down there. You know, seeing as you're new and all, you probably don't know the way. And Victor's _real _strict about us all getting there on time." Mara smiled, slightly.

"I believe I already told Victor I'd be there when I'm there." Bri glared at the overly chirpy girl. Deep inside, she was quite sure that she'd like her, but she promised herself she'd keep up the charade _at least _until Saturday. Five days, she could handle that. Plus, it'd be kind of fun to see the looks on everyone's faces when she emerged in her real form.

"Uh… Victor said he'd come up here, and get you if you didn't come down with me. And let me just say, you _don't _want that happening." Mara warned, acting as if it were her last chance.

Bri sighed, and stepped out of her room, shutting the door behind her. She rested a hand on her hip, as she followed Mara down to the kitchen where she saw a bunch of faces, boys and girls.

She had to restrain a gulp. Why in the world would boys be residing in the same house as girls? This isn't college, she could _not _room with boys. It was totally unacceptable!

This year was going to _suck._

{3rd person Jerome's p.o.v}

"I swear," Mara groaned, as she took her place next to Patricia. "She is the most _obnoxious _person I've ever met!"

Patricia leant forward, resting her head in her hand. Jerome and Alfie glanced at each other, both positive that she had meant most obnoxious _girl _she'd ever seen. There was just no way that there was a human on Earth more obnoxious then them, that was what they spent their years making sure of.

"Even more obnoxious then Jerome and Alfie?" Patricia snorted, and rolled her eyes.

"In a way, yes." Mara answered, surprising everyone. "She has _no _respect. Heck, she even went into the kitchen to make sure that Trudy didn't make her peanut butter and jelly sandwich right! She said she refuses to eat it, unless it's made _exactly right."_

"Well, guys," Nina jumped in. "Let's give her the benefit of the doubt, here. This is her first day, she's likely to be noticed, and just wants to make a memorable first impression."

"Fine!" Patricia exploded at the American. "Then let her make cupcakes or something for us! Don't let her parade around like a hooker, and ruin everybody's fun!"

Jerome snuck a glance into the kitchen to see a girl with blonde hair pulled up into a side ponytail. She seemed to be arguing with Trudy, before throwing her hands up, and making the sandwich herself.

"Well," he smirked, turning back to the group. "she may be obnoxious but she is _hot." _

"Jerome, do you ever think about something that _isn't _girls?" Fabian moaned.

Jerome pretended to think about it, and nodded. "Yep, what prank I'm gonna pull on all you losers next."

The others rolled their eyes and made a move to go back to discussing the new girl, when a bored voice broke through them all.

"Prank pullers are the _real _losers."

Everyone turned to face the blonde, who was standing in the kitchen thresh hold, staring wide eyed, down at her sandwich.


	2. Chapter 2

Bri stared down at her sandwich, wide eyed, not believing what she had just done. It had just slipped out, she hadn't meant to say that! The Bri she was _supposed _to be wouldn't say something like that. She got expelled _for _pulling a prank.

Okay, calm down. She told her self, closing her eyes, and breathing deeply through her nose. You can get through this. Just say what you really think, but with absolutely _no _expression on your face.

"I mean, they obviously have way too much time on their hands, if they can come up with such ridiculous pranks." She sighed, batting her eyes, but never actually closing them. Then, she rounded the table, to sit next to the boy who had called her 'hot' earlier. She rested her head in her hand and looked at him. "The ones being pranked at least have enough of a life to not realize when it's about to happen."

The boy glared at her, as she stared willfully up at him. Bri was impressed with herself, normally she would've cracked a huge grin at the face the boy was showing her, but instead, her smile was sly. Almost a smirk.

"I see." The boy hissed, "And who shall I be quoting when I tell the other prankers of the world?"

"Bri Faye." Bri smiled, and bit into her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. "And it's _whom. Whom _may I be quoting. You have bad grammar." Dammit! She really needed to stop this, otherwise her whole disguise would be blown to pieces! "And whom may I be quoting?"

"Jerome Clarke." The boy suddenly smirked, and rested his head in his hand, smiling into her eyes. Bri didn't like this change of attitude. She liked it better when he was glaring at her. Then, she knew how to deal, but no boy had ever looked at her like this before. In that sort of, flirty way, and she hated it.

"Maybe we should discuss the difference between prankers and losers in private some other time." He murmured, leaning in closer to her.

Bri closed her eyes, and pushed herself up from the table. Suddenly, she wasn't hungry anymore, and well… she hated when she lost her appetite. You tend to, when you live with four boys, and if _you _don't eat it, you'll never see it again, especially when her mother was sick, and she had to make the food. Let me tell you, not fun. So, the annoyed quirk in her eyebrow wasn't difficult to fake.

"Please don't take this the wrong way," she said, smiling evilly down at him. "But I'd rather kiss a monkey's ass."

With that, Bri turned on her heal, and marched out the door. But, she didn't go up to her room, instead she leant up against the wall, and listened to what the Brits had to say about her.

"Oh… she got you good." She heard one of the boys say. She couldn't be sure which, and she was too nervous to peak around.

"Shut up, Alfie." Jerome hissed in his nauseating British accent. Bri was certain that she would never get used to it.

"Oh calm down, Jerome." It was a girl's voice this time, same British accent, as well. "It's not like it's the first time a girl shot you down."

"Yes, well she compared me to a monkey's butt, and said the monkey's butt was better." Jerome shot back.

"Can't you just give it a rest?" another boy came in this time. "Must you really hit on every girl that comes into your sight?"

"Oh, Fabian, how little you really know me." Jerome sighed. "I'll tell you _this, _I _will _have her fall for me, that you shall see!"

Bri wanted to snort. _Her _fall for _him? _Yeah, when hell freezes over, and Santa takes rule of it. Then she may consider thinking about going out with him. But not until then.

"I don't really think you're her type Jerome." Another girl was saying, Bri could sense a slight smirk in her British infested voice.

"I'm _every_ girl's type." She could sense the smirk in Jerome's voice, this time, too.

"Which is why so many have turned you down, hot stud?" Alfie, again Bri guessed, trying to keep all their voices and names in line.

"I'm willing to _bet _you that I can get her!" Jerome laughed.

"Deal!"

Bri gasped, she hadn't expected _that _to be the outcome of her little outburst. Now, she was going to have a Brit twit on her tail, flirting with her every second of the day? That just won't do!

She jumped up, and ran into her room, locking the door behind her.

{A few hours later}

Bri lay in her bed, flipping through a magazine. It was almost ten, and she was waiting for Victor to give his speech she'd read about. She really couldn't wait to hear it.

A knock came from her door. Bri sighed, and threw a black robe over her blue spaghetti strap and underwear-she never slept in pants, unless it was absolutely necessary.

She opened the door to reveal a girl with curly light brown-or dark blonde, whatever you want to call it-hair. Bri glared at her, and hugged the robe closer to her.

"What?" she hissed, annoyed at having been interrupted, by a Brit-_again. _

"Hi, I'm Nina." Wait, did she sound-could it be true? Could she be… American? Bri wanted to jump for joy, _finally _someone who wasn't a tea drinking Brit! "We haven't been formally introduced. I was wondering, if, maybe I could come in…?"

Bri shrugged. Why not? She wasn't British, so she was cool. "Fine." She sighed, though, trying to hide her excitement.

Nina smiled, and entered the room, before taking a look around. "Let me guess, you _aren't _goth, are you?" she asked.

Bri gasped. She had totally forgotten not to let _anyone _in her room. Her green blanket, and maroon pillow certainly didn't look gothic. Neither did her manga collection, nor her stuffed light up bear. Dammit, how could she have forgotten?  
"You caught me." She sighed, sitting down on the bed.

"Why're you pretending to be goth?" Nina wondered, as she explored Bri's room. Bri didn't know why, but she suddenly felt-exposed. As if Nina could tell everything about her just by her room. Which, she probably could. Bri didn't usually have any secrets.

"Because I didn't want any stupid Brits bothering me." Bri growled, crossing her arms.

"Ah." Was all Nina said. Bri felt that she had somehow insulted her, though she didn't know why. Nina wasn't British.

"You're prejudice against them." Nina whispered finally.

Bri shook her head, even though Nina couldn't see it, for she was looking the other way. "No, not really. I've just always hated Brits for as long as I can remember, and before."

Nina whirled to face her. "How long have you hated them?"

Bri shrugged. "Well, the first thing I can remember is a voice whispering in my head that I was supposed to genuinely hate them for some reason."

"How long ago was that?"

"I don't know. I don't even remember where I was, or even _roughly _how old I was. I only remember that I didn't understand the words."

Nina knelt down in front of her. Bri felt as if she were trying to comfort her, but she didn't understand why. This was something she'd had to deal with her whole life. She had no emotions toward not remembering anything about something anymore.

"You mean you didn't get why you weren't supposed to like the British?" Nina questioned.

Bri shook her head, again. "No, I couldn't understand the _words. _They were gibberish to me."

"I see." Nina stood up again, and moved towards the door. "It's getting late. I should probably leave and get ready for bed before I run out of time. Victor can get pretty strict about punctuality."

"So I've heard." Bri smirked.

Nina smiled faintly back at her, before walking out.

{3rd Person Jerome's p.o.v}

"Well?" Amber asked, as Nina entered the common room. "Did you find out why she's being so rude."

"Yep." Nina nodded, sitting down next to Fabian on the couch.

A bit earlier everyone had sent Nina to see what was up with the new girl. Jerome still wasn't sure why it was _her _they had sent, but no one would tell him.

"Well…?" Patricia asked, when Nina still didn't answer. "Are you going to answer us, or are we gonna have to guess?"

Nina fidgeted in her chair, a bit. "I don't know if you guys'll like it…." She muttered.

"I'm pretty sure we can take it, Nina." Fabian helped, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It can't be any worse than what we're dealing with, now." He said it as if it were some secret just between the two of them, and Jerome couldn't help but wonder just _what _he was talking about.

Nina sighed. "Okay, I guess you're right." She bit her lip, and then looked straight into the circle. "She's not goth."

"Phew." Jerome sighed, putting a hand to his head. "Thank you for trying to spare us, I can't think of anything worse than that!"

"That's not it, idiot." Patricia shot at him. "There's obviously more to the story, you dope."

Jerome glared at her for a second, before turning his head back to Nina.

"And…" Nina closed her eyes, before looking at her feet. "She hates British people." The sentence came out fast, as if she didn't want anyone to really understand it.

There was a moment of silence, before Patricia exploded with a: "_What?"_

"Gee." Alfie laughed, hitting Jerome on the back. "Looks like you're _really _not her type."

{The Next Day}

(3rd person Bri's p.o.v)

Bri got up the next day, feeling fresh as a daisy. She wasn't sure why, she just felt… rejuvenated. As if some huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

Gotta get up. She thought, still a bit groggily-because who _wasn't _in the morning? Danny, Jack and George are probably waiting for me, by now.

Those girls, no matter _how _much of prank pullers they were, they were always early. And they always yelled at Bri for being late.

Now, I know what you're thinking, Danny, Jack and George are _girls? _Well, the truth was, was that they were short for 'Dannette' 'Jacklyn' and 'Georgina'. All horrible names, so it just made sense to have nicknames, even if they were boy nicknames, right?

Bri pushed herself up, so she was resting on her forearms, and looked around. She felt grim wash over her face, as she took in her surroundings. She wasn't in her downstairs room at home, with golden light streaming through her window right onto her extra bed. And she just noticed that her spare closet wasn't leaning over her like it always does, since one of the hinges got broken. And there was no sound of people hustling around to get ready for work.

Oh, yeah. She thought grimly. I'm in Britain…. Joy.

She sighed, and got up throwing on her gothic outfit of the day. She'd picked it out last night, and tried not to think about how thin she really was on black clothing.

When she opened the door, she saw the last person she wanted to see on the other side of it.

* * *

**BeBe: Sorry about the adrubt ending, I wanted to continue it, but my mom just found out my brother has head lice, and wants to check if I do, too. I'll update in three days, and hopefully the chapters will start getting longer.**


	3. Chapter 3

**BeBe: I know, this is a bit earlier than I had promised, but there isn't much to do when you're stuck at home with possible head lice.**"Jerome." Bri nodded, to the light brown haired boy. She worked to keep a look of non caring on her face.

* * *

"Oh, quit the act." Jerome glared. "I know you're not goth, Nina told us." Then he smirked. "Besides, you need to wear your school uniform to school."

"It's under the coat, and you've been misinformed." Bri stated, calmly, as she brushed passed him. "I am goth, why do you think I got kicked out of my old school? You know it's not for pulling pranks since I despise pranksters."

"Oh really? Then would you mind explaining all the bright colors in your room?"

Bri stopped, abruptly, and grimaced. Damn, she'd let her guard down again! She'd left her bedroom door open for him to see in! Well, this was probably the end, anyway. Might as well go down fighting.

"For the folks." She muttered. "They don't approve of me being goth, so they forced me to have a light and happy bedroom."

Jerome stepped up beside her, and smirked. "Uh-huh." He said, in a mockingly thoughtful tone. Bri wanted to slap him.

"I never said I liked it." She grumbled. "As a matter of fact I _hate _it. It's _just for the folks."_

Jerome bent down so that his lips were right next to her ear. "Why don't you go change into something a little more appropriate." He whispered seductively as if asking her to go put on a lingerie.

Bri gasped, and flung around to smack him on the face. "Okay, fine. So I'm not goth, what's it to you?" she hissed.

He didn't seem to have felt her slap, he just kept staring down at her. And that annoyed the hell out of Bri. She wanted to slap him until he got some common sense in his head. Although, of course, that would mean _a lot _of slapping.

"Why, it doesn't mean anything to me. Except for the fact that I like a girl who can be herself." He smiled charmingly down at her.

Bri smiled lovingly back up. "Well, you can go fuck yourself." She said as sweetly as possible before storming off in the opposite direction.

"I will get you, Bri Faye!" she heard him call down after her. "Just you wait!"

Bri stopped in her tracks, and turned around to face him, arms crossed. She could see a quirk in the corner of his mouth, as if he were trying not to smile, and failing. She didn't pay much attention to it, though.

"Oh, really…?" she asked, smirking. "Well, since Nina told you that I'm not actually goth, pray tell me what other juicy little tid bit she said."

She saw Jerome let the sly smile work its way across his face. "Apparently you have a bit of a problem with us Brits."

"That's the under statement of the century." Bri muttered under her breath. Then, louder she said, "Okay, then, I hate Brits. What do you want me to do? Apologize? Well, I won't, so don't hold your breath."

"Wasn't going to." He smirked.

Bri sighed, and took a hesitant step towards him. This wasn't how she'd planned the second day of her arrival to go. Not by a long shot. Damn.

"Okay, Jerome, what did you _really _come up here, for?" she asked, then added at his confused face. "Surely you wouldn't just come up to say all that to me."

Jerome shrugged. "Maybe I did. You haven't known me for 24 hours, so you have no clue if I would or not."

"I know, because _nobody _seeks someone out, just to tell them that they weren't goth."

Bri watched as Jerome's smirk got bigger. Yep. She hated him, and not just because he was British, she knew she'd hate him, even if he were American.

"Oh, yeah…. There was another reason." Jerome smiled. "Today's Saturday, and I don't know about America, but here, in Britain, we don't go to school on the weekends."

"Well, why didn't you tell me that earlier?" Bri hissed, threateningly, stepping up to him so she was all up in his face.

Jerome smiled down at her. "Must've slipped my mind."

"You're just lucky I'm tired, otherwise I'd throw you over the ledge." Bri growled, then stormed around him, and back into her room.

Well, she thought, may as well put on some of my _normal _clothes, since everyone already knows that I'm really goth. That plan sure went down the drain, fast.

She put on a purple shirt that looked like a kid had gotten to it with white spray paint on, and the same black vest from last night over it. Then, she pulled on a pair of dark blue jeans, and placed a pair of sunglasses on top of her head like a head band. Now, _there _was the Brittany that everyone knew and loved.

At least, in America.

Bri pulled open her door and went to go downstairs to confront Jerome again about talking to her like that, when she heard voices coming from above her. She felt her eyebrows knit together in confusion because she was on the top floor and the only one above her was the attic which was strictly forbidden. And she could tell that it was kids because she recognized Fabian and Nina's voices.

Turning, Bri located the stairs to the attic right behind her. Funny how she hadn't noticed them before. She stepped up onto the first step, and let out a silent breath, as the stair let out a soft groan underneath her. Just great.

She slowly made her way up the stairs, careful not to put too much weight on each one, scared that she'd get caught.

When she finally reached the top, she jiggled the handle on the door, only to find that it was locked. That didn't stop Bri though, she may be a goody-goody, but that didn't mean she didn't know how to get down and dirty. She licked the top of her super long pinky nail, and smiled. Finally, another thing that long nails were good at besides winning thumb wars.

She put the nail in, and easily picked the lock. Boy, would George freak when she heard about this.

Bri carefully opened the door, and heard the talking get louder. She stepped inside, and quietly closed it, making sure to lock it behind her. She didn't want anyone knowing she'd been up here.

She knelt on the ground, and began to crawl towards the voices. She was just going to see what they were talking about, and then leave. No one ever had to know that she had been up here. But, fate had a different plan.

She'd let her guard down just a bit, and her knee had landed on a loose floorboard, responding in a giant groan that stopped the voices immediately. Bri closed her eyes, and silently swore a string of curses.

"What was that?" she heard Nina whisper, urgently.

"I think someone's up here." Another voice answered-a girl.

"Don't be silly, Amber." Fabian murmured. "The only people who'd be up here are Jerome, Alfie and Victor. And Victor went to the school, and Jerome and Alfie are confronting Bri."

Bri held her breath, and hoped that they would go back to talking, and forget about her. But, she made another mistake, just as they were going back, she let out her breath in a loud 'Whoosh.'

"Okay, now I _know _someone is up here." The girl called Amber said.

Bri heard Fabian sigh, then call out. "Okay, we know you're out there, show yourself!"

Bri closed her eyes and silently muttered a prayer, hoping that they wouldn't catch her. This time, though , she didn't hold her breath. She was too scared that she would make the mistake of letting it out loudly, again.

"See, Amber?" Fabian shook his head. "No one's up here. Now, let's get back to business. We need to find out what's happened to Joy."

"I'm telling you," another girl's voice piped in. "Victor killed her."

"We aren't sure, Patricia." Nina murmured. "After all, you said that Rufus was in the crowd, as well and Victor had just as many reasons to want to kill him, too."

Bri clutched at her shirt, trying not to turn around as she listened to the four kids talk. This wasn't making any sense! It was just like that voice in her head all over again!

"Well, maybe we should go see Sarah, again." Nina was suggesting.

"That old crazy hag?" Patricia snorted. "She probably won't help, much. She'll probably just start yelling nonsense, again."

"Well, what do you suggest we do?" Fabian shot back.

"I suggest we take the elixir to the police." Patricia said. "That way it'll be out of our hands, and they'll do a better job solving all of this, than we ill."

"You don't get it, Patricia." Fabian groaned. "The police may be in on it with him. The only one's we can trust are each other."

Bri whipped her head around ,at that, and her sunglasses went flying off her head, and across the floor. They landed right in the middle of the little circle that the four kids had been making. Bri silently cursed herself, as the three of them jumped up.

"Told you someone was there." Amber gloated, looking around. She had platinum blonde hair and light blue eyes. Bri got the feeling that she didn't have two brain cells to rub up against each other. No wonder Fabian hadn't believed her when she had said that someone was in the room.

"Yes, Amber, you were right." Fabian groaned, then called out. "There's no point in hiding, anymore! We know you're out there!"

Bri winced, as if she'd been slapped and slowly stood up.

The four kids stared at her, as if not really believing that she was there. She smiled nervously, held up a hand and twitched a few fingers in a greeting.

"Hello." She murmured.

"Oh, this is just _great." _Patricia hissed.

{3rd Person Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome slammed the bedroom door behind him, angrily. Alfie looked up from the video game he was playing at the light brown haired boy.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his eyes trailing back to the screen.

"That _girl_ is what's wrong." Jerome hissed, pointing towards the door. Alfie didn't need to ask who he was talking about.

"I don't get why you're so obsessed with her." he muttered, with a slight cheeer as he cleared a level. "You don't normally get _this_ upset when any of those other girls turn you down."

Jerome didn't answer, instead he wrote _Bri_ on a piece of paper, and got the doll from before when he and Alfie had been under probation, and put it back up on the dart board. Then he picked up the darts, and began to aim them at the doll's head. He had to admit, it _did_ help relieve his stress a bit.

One dart hit the doll straight in the eye, and he let a smile cross his face.

Alfie pressed pause on his game, and looked over at the doll. "Need some help getting her?" he chuckled, as Jerome chucked another dart at the doll.

"Of course I don't, Alfie." Jerome grumbled, tossing another dart at the doll, which just barely grazed the top of it's head. "I'm the master at picking up girls. She'll be kissing my feet in no time."

Alfie smirked, and moved over to sit next to Jerome, "Okay, this is what you have to do…."

{3rd Person Bri's p.o.v}

Bri blinked as she stared at each of the other for kids that were up in the attic, unbelievably. She just couldn't believe it. Victor was _evil-_okay, she could imagine that, he seemed like the evil type. But king Tut's treasure was in Anubis house? And all those other things she could hardly keep track of.

"So… what now?" she asked, picking at the remains of her black nail polish. "I bet you're going to tell me that I have to keep it a secret, and just forget everything you've told me, huh?"

Fabian and Nina looked at each other for a second, and Bri knew that that wasn't it. Everyone looked at her, and put a hand over their right eye.

"Sabuna." They all said in unision.

Bri's eyes lit up, as she got what they meant. She couldn't believe that they actually trusted her enough to not just stay in on their secret, but actually be a part of the club!

She put her own hand over her right eye. "Sabuna."

"We should get going, now." Nina said. "Lunch is going to be soon, and we don't want Victor catching us up here."

"Actually, I'd like to have a look around." Bri said. "I'll meet you guys downstairs, later, okay?"

"Just be sure to be careful and not to get caught." Fabian warned.

Bri nodded, and continued to sit as the others got up and left. She wasn't going to explore quite like they probably thought she was going to. She wasn't going to go through any drawers or whatever. She just wanted to see how big the room was. Maybe, she'd be able to hide up here sometimes if she just wanted to be alone. Because her room obviously wasn't going to always be an option.

The attic wasn't huge, but it had so many boxes in it, that it would be easy to hide in it. Bri was thoroughly impressed with it. It would actually be the perfect little hide away.

After about ten minutes, Bri went back to the door, but turned back to look around the attic. She didn't know why, but she had this odd feeling that she was leaving something behind. She touched the sunglasses on top of her head, to see if they had fallen. They hadn't.

Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that she shouldn't be leaving just yet.

Bri shrugged. Ah, well, she'd probably be up here a lot, she'd look some other time.

With that, she opened the attic door, and stepped out. Without looking down the steps, she turned and once again, used her pinky nail to lock it behind her. Then, she turned, and gasped at what she saw at the bottom of the steps.

"My, my." Jerome smirked, eyebrow raised. "What do we have here?"

Bri sighed, and started down the stairs, not being as careful as before. "What do you want, this time, Jerome?"

Jerome smiled seductively down at her, again, but Bri hardly noticed, she was too caught up in her panic about being caught. She was quite sure that he wouldn't tell Victor or Trudy about her being up there, but you could never be too sure.

"I need help with some homework." Jerome said, as she reached him.

Bri could say that she was more than confused.


	4. Chapter 4

"No. no, no." Bri groaned, restraining herself from hitting Jerome over the head. "John Paul Jones was not a traitor of the war of 1812! He was a hero of the Revolutionary war!"

"You sure?" Jerome muttered, scratching his head with his pencil. "Because I'm sure he was fighting for the opposing side in the 1812 war."

Bri hit her head on the table, and moaned. She was beginning to suspect that Jerome was just playing the idiot to annoy her. And, she was ashamed to say, it was working.

"He was fighting on _my _side of the war in both of them, Jerome." Bri felt the breath woosh out of her. "Our view points are different, you really should be getting _Mara's _help for this essay."

Jerome shook his head, before pulling Bri's off the table by her hair. It was Sunday afternoon,-a week after she had first arrived-and she was trying to help Jerome with an essay on the war of 1812.

"I asked, and she's too busy." He smirked, still hanging onto her hair. It _might've _hurt her, if it weren't for the fact that she was used to having her hair pulled. What, with growing up with four brothers and no sisters and all.

"Well, then you're just going to have to do it, yourself." Bri muttered, tugging her hair out of his hand. "We have opposing view points, and this essay is supposed to be more opinion, than fact, anyway."

She stood up, and made to leave. She was going to go back up to the attic to try and find what she'd left behind her second day, here. She'd been meaning to do that all week, but Jerome _always _had some kid of homework he needed _her _to help him with.

Bri had always been one to help, but it just got so infuriating when a teenager for some reason couldn't figure out simple adding problems like 25+25=50. How the hell did the guy get out of elementary school, much less, into high school without knowing these basic facts?

"Wait!" Jerome cried, desperately trying to grab her wrist, but Bri was already out of his reach. "You still need to help me with my Mythology homework!"

Bri sighed, and glanced up the stairs. Mythology was her best subject, so she might be able to finish this within 20 minutes, even _with _having to explain it to Jerome.

"Okay…" she sighed, sitting back down next to him on the couch. "But that's _it. _What do you need to know?"

"I just need to know what all the planets were named after-except for Earth, and including Pluto." Jerome smirked, and Bri could see clearly that he thought she didn't know what they were. So then, they'd have to spend hours trying to google it on his laptop that he probably locked so they couldn't get on to most the sights.

"That wasn't the homework we got, today." Bri smirked back.

Jerome closed his eyes, and waved his hand nonchalantly. "It's a late assignment, it was given out the day you first arrived."

Bri smiled, and nodded. "Okay, now listen closely." She took a deep breath, and started to speak as slowly as she could.

"Mercury was named after the Roman messenger god because he was believed to be super fast, and since Mercury is the closest to the sun, it orbits faster. Venus was named after the Roman goddess of love. Mars was named after the Roman god of war, because from Earth, it looks barren and desolated as if the great after math of a war that had just occurred. Jupiter was named after the Roman god of all gods because it's the biggest planet. Saturn was named after the Roman god of agriculture, Uranus after the _Greek _god of the sky. Neptune was named after the Roman god of the sea because of it's color, and Pluto was actually named after Mickey Mouse's dog, but the dumb ass scientists _had _to say that it was named after the Roman god of the underworld."

Bri opened her eyes, to see Jerome staring at her, wide eyed. She smirked, and stood up, practically floating towards the stairs. "And don't you forget it." She nodded back to him.

Before he could call her for some other assignment he needed "help" with, she rushed up the stairs, and practically flew down the hall. She nearly bumped into Mick on the way, but, luckily stopped in time.

"Why in such a hurry?" he asked, as he steadied her. Bri wasn't known for steady landings. "I haven't seen anyone rush like that since the day Mara woke up late-on a Saturday."

Bri smiled at the little mistake the tan Brit had made before shrugging it off. "Jerome wants me to help him with his homework."

"Question asked, and question answered." Mick laughed slightly, before moving out of the way.

Bri had met Mick shortly after the incident in the attic, on her second day. And she would be lying she'd said she hadn't been attracted to the blonde in the least. He was gorgeous with brown eyes, and an athletic body, and she knew she'd drooled over him for a second before catching herself.

Of course, it was useless, liking him anymore than liking a hot actor. He was unconditionally in love with Mara, even though he refuses to admit it ever since an incident that had happened before Bri had showed up. Apparently Mara had turned all bad girl and had taken pictures of him with a teacher, and photo shopped them so that they hadn't looked so innocent.

Not to mention, he tended to be known as the 'Heartbreaker' or, at least that's what Patricia told her. Apparently he had made out with Mara not even a week after breaking up with Amber. Bri had a feeling that Patricia had been exaggerating, but hadn't confronted anyone for the truth.

Bri smiled at the retreating blonde, for a second, before going up the stairs that led to the attic. She felt the feeling return-the feeling that there was something on the other side that she _needed _to get.

She picked the lock with her nail, once again, and opened up the door, carefully.

Carefully, she stepped over the loose boards, that she remembered from last time, and made her way over to a chest in the corner. She didn't know why she went there, she just had a feeling that what she was looking for was behind there.

Bri bent down, and slowly opened the lid to the chest. Her teal net like looking shirt got in the way of her vision a bit, as she peered down at what was inside the huge chest-a book. A single book, hardly bigger than her outstretched hand with no more than 150 pages in it.

She was confused. Why a big chest for a book so tiny? Never the less, she picked it up, confident that she'd found what she was looking for.

Then she turned, and went back down the stairs, locking the door behind her. She wasn't sure why she felt as if she needed the book, she just knew she did.

For a second, Bri contemplated showing it to Nina and the others, then decided for it. If anything, _they _would know what it was, and she knew she could trust them.

Bri went down to the room Nina and Amber shared.

{3rd Person Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome slammed the door to the room he and Alfie shared, cursing loudly. This time, Alfie wasn't playing video games, instead, he was playing with his zombie mask.

"How'd studying go?" Alfie asked, almost absent mindedly.

"It hardly went _at all." _Jerome muttered, picking up the darts and throwing them at the doll that was still pinned up on the door.

"Did you ask her to tell you what all the planets were named after?"

Jerome nodded, and chucked a fifth dart at the doll. "She knows them _all. _And why they were named that."

"This girl is going to be tough to crack." Alfie murmured, stroking a pretend beard.

"Ya' think?"

{3rd Person Bri's p.o.v}

Bri sat the book down in the middle of the group her, Nina, Fabian, Amber and Patricia had formed. It was brown, with the eye of Anubis **{Or is it Anubis eye? Very confused right now, without glasses, they're my life force}-**something she had discovered after wiping away layers of dust.

There was a metal clasp on the side, but it wasn't locked. Never the less, they couldn't get it to open. Nina had tried putting her necklace thing on it, and had gotten the book to glow, but still stayed firmly shut.

"Any ideas, genius?" Bri asked, turning to Fabian, who was rubbing his forehead, staring at the book, a look of concentration was on his face.

"One." He muttered. "It's a long shot, but it just might work."

"Well, as you can see, we're willing to try anything, at the moment." Nina sighed.

Fabian nodded. "Okay, Nina put your necklace back on the book." Nina promptly did so, and Bri watched as the book glowed red, for like the billionth time. "Now, Bri, try and open it."

Bri raised an eyebrow at him, though did as he instructed, and-much to her surprise-the book opened with ease. Everyone turned to look at Fabian.

"Well, Nina's locket obviously had some kind of effect on the book. And since Bri was the one to find it, I figured she might have something to do with it, too." Fabian explained, shrugging. "Seems my idea worked."

"Show off." Bri muttered, before going to look inside the book. It looked like some kind of journal, the writing was jagged and crooked as if hand written, instead of typed. And the pages had turned yellow with age.

She picked it up, and began to flip through the pages, when two pieces of paper fell out. One was folded, and the other landed upside down. She picked up the one that was unfolded, and gasped at what she saw.

It was a picture-of her. Or, at least, it _looked _like her. The same heart shaped face, same depressed eyes as if she'd seen too much to ever be happy again. Except, her hair was nearly twice the length of Bri's, and she could tell that the girl's eyes were a different color.

"Wow, it-it look's exactly like you." Nina breathed, looking between Bri and the picture.

"It's probably one of her ancestors." Patricia, said, nudging the edge. "Nothing more. I mean, it's not like Bri's been alive as long as Victor."

"Wait," Amber said, then she looked at Bri. "Have you?"

Bri and the others rolled their eyes at the blonde's stupidity before going back to studying the picture. It was old-as in _really _old, so it couldn't be Bri, since it looked like her _now, _instead of two or three years ago.

"What does the note say?" Fabian asked, finally.

Bri was brought out of her revere and went to unfold a paper, when a voice broke through the door.

"Guys!" she heard Mara call from the other side. "Mail's here!"

The five kids looked at each other, confused. Should they go? The mail could wait, but it'd look suspicious if they didn't go down.

"It'll still be here, when we come back up." Fabian murmured.

Everyone nodded, as if that was all he needed to say, and got up, to run down the stairs. The rest of the house was down there, waiting for them. Bri didn't know why she had to go. No mail had come for her for the last week, and surely none would for a very long time.

So, she was more than surprised when Trudy handed her a white envelope. She looked down, and sure enough, there was her name written in messy handwriting. Handwriting that she recognized….

Bri hurriedly opened up the letter, read it over, and screamed.

* * *

**Bri: Is it killing you, not knowing what's going to happen? Huh? Huh? Do you feel like you're going to explode? Lol, anyways, I should update by Wednesday. Also, the only reason I know what the planets are named after is because I had to do a report on them about a week ago, so… yeah…. Um… review!**


	5. Chapter 5

"What?" Nina half cried, jumping back, and putting a hand over her heart.

Bri didn't hear her, though. She was too busy staring at the words on the letter. Everything else was drifting away, it was weird-she could see the letter, but not the paper. The words were just floating in mid air.

She could still sense her body, though, and felt herself rock back and forth as if someone were shaking her. Then, her head flew to the side, as if someone had slapped her. Still, her whole mind was focused solely on the words.

Suddenly, the paper was wrenched out of her hands, and she was brought back to reality. Bri blinked, and lunged at Alfie, who was the one who had taken the note, trying to grab it back. Which, she succeeded, thankfully in grabbing.

"Hey!" Alfie yanked his hand back, Bri could see blood welling up at the tip. He put it in his mouth, and sucked on it. She supposed she should feel bad, but she didn't, the note was too precious to lose.

Bri clutched the note to her chest, breathing hard. "Don't you ever _dare _touch this." She hissed, glaring at everyone.

"What is it, hon?" Trudy asked, taking a step forward.

Still clutching it near her heart, Bri stood straight, and cleared her throat. "It's a letter from James, and George." She announced. "Two of my friends from America, they're coming to visit."

She glanced over at Trudy, knowing her eyes were begging. "Trudy, can they please stay here?" she asked.

Trudy sighed, and shook her head. "Sorry, hon, but there isn't enough room."

Bri knew that Trudy wasn't worried about having two extra boys in the house-considering she knew that George was a girl. James was Bri's best guy friend.

"George can sleep with me!" she cried. "And I'm sure one of the boys would be willing to bunk with James. Pretty please!"

Trudy sighed, and glanced at the kids. "Okay, if you can get one of the boys to put James up, then you can." And she left-probably to go clean, I mean, what else did she do?

Bri turned, puppy dog eyes focusing on the boys. "Pwetty ple-e-ease?" she begged, in her baby voice.

"Wait," Jerome said, holding up his hands, as if trying to stop traffic. "Did you say that you were going to have George sleep in the same bed as you? Isn't that inappropriate?"

Bri shrugged, Typical boy. She thought If it isn't a boy and a girl sharing a bed, it's inappropriate. God, boys are so gross.

"Well, yeah, it might've been kinda awkward-if it weren't for the fact that we've shared a bed _before." _

Jerome gaped at her for a second, before shaking his head. "Now, by friends, do you mean 'Friends-Friends' 'Gay-Friends' or 'Friends that your not potential with, but still might have a thing for you, friends'?"

Bri smiled, recognizing the line from Big Bang Theory, and realized he was playing a joke.

"Well, they're definitely not gay…." She muttered, pretending to sound a bit guilty.

Jerome glared, as Bri caught Alfie smirking.

"We would be _honored _to have James stay in our room, Bri." He said, obviously not noticing Jerome's glare.

"Really?" Bri cried, throwing herself into Alfie's arms. "Oh, thank you, Alfie! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Alfie laughed, and Bri could feel him hesitantly hug her back. "Of course, this isn't totally selfless." He muttered, letting go of her, son after.

Bri rolled her eyes, and sighed. "Now, why doesn't that surprise me?" she mumbled to herself before looking Alfie straight in the eye. "Okay, lay it on me. What do you want?"

"You must cook us dinner every day for an entire week." Alfie commanded.

Bri sighed, and nodded. "Okay, fine. Starting today, I'll make you guys dinner for a whole week." She pointed a finger menacingly at him. "But _only _if you allow James to stay with you."

Alfie held a hand up to his heart. "You have my word as a gentleman."

"Now, why doesn't that comfort me?" Bri asked, sarcastically, but still smiling. "Really, though, you guys, this means a lot to me."

"Incidentally." Mara asked, stepping forward. For the first time since her second day, Bri noticed how the guys' British accents didn't annoy her, anymore. Weird. That wasn't what she had been expecting. "When _are _these guys coming to meet you?"

"Well, James is coming next week-Friday to be exact, and George the following Sunday." Bri bit her lip, and looked down at the paper, something suddenly hitting her. "Although, I wonder why their being allowed to skip so many days of school. They say that they're coming to stay for almost a whole month."

Fabian laughed. "You mean you don't remember?" he chuckled. "Christmas is only three weeks, away. They probably don't have school next week."

Bri hit herself on the head, and groaned. "Of course! How come I didn't remember? Christmas is like my favorite holiday!" she dropped her hand, and looked at the others, a bit nervously. "Um, you guys _do _celebrate Christmas, here, right?"

The others laughed, making Bri feel so embarrassed. Well, she didn't know! They might not, but, before she could say anything, Patricia was wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

"Come on." She said, leading her towards the door. Bri watched as she motioned for Nina, Amber, and Fabian to follow. She also caught sight of Mara's dejected face, as her best friend didn't include her. "We still have some things we need to talk about."

"Like what?" Amber questioned, and then her eyes grew wide, and understanding filled them. "Oh, about the journal, and the girl that looks like-_ow!" _she cried, as Nina stepped on her foot. "What was that for?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, was that your foot?" Nina asked, almost growling the last words, as she glared at Amber.

"Yes!" Amber cried. "More importantly, it was my shoe! Now, is it the journal we're going to go discuss, or no-_hey!" _this time, the cry came from Fabian elbowing her in the side.

"Just come on." Bri sighed, deciding that the longer Amber was down there, the worse it was going to get. They _really _had to work on that girl's stupidity.

The three other club members nodded, and followed her and Patricia up the stairs. Bri could hear the confused mumbles from downstairs. She sighed, keeping this a secret was going to be harder than she had thought.

"Okay," she said, as soon as the door was locked behind her. "First thing's first. Amber, you _really _have to stop saying what we're doing up here."

"I'm sorry." Amber sounded offended. "I was just confused."

Bri shook her head, and sat back down on her side of the circle. "Never mind, lets get back to reading the diary-and the note."

Fabian shook his head. "Wait, there's one thing I want you to do, first."

Bri looked up at him, and raised an eyebrow. She could tell from the look on his face, that it was something important-and something she probably wasn't going to want to do.

{3rd Person Jerome's p.o.v}

"Why did you tell her that this guy could stay in our room?" Jerome growled at Alfie, the second they had entered their… well, room.

Alfie smirked, and fell back on his bed. "Oh, silly me." He sighed. "I've made a terrible mistake. Now, with this James guy staying in our room, we can ask him any and every question we need to know to get Bri fall in love with you. What was I thinking?"

Jerome continued to glare at Alfie, as what his best friend had said sunk in. Then his face broke into a wide grin. He wanted to hug him, but of course, hugging another guy wasn't cool, so he wasn't going to.

"Alfie, you _genius!" _he laughed. "That's brilliant!" then something dawned on him. "Except for one thing."

Alfie cracked open an eye, and looked at him. "What?"

"Oh, nothing really, just the fact that that George character is going to be sleeping in the _same bed _as her, now!" Jerome exploded. "What're we going to do about _that?"_

"Oh," Alfie's face fell, as he thought it over. "Well, we'll come up with something when the time comes. But, for now, we have to plan another way to get her to fall for you. If we wait for James to come, she'll know something's up."

"Ah, way to think outside the box, Alfie." Jerome smirked. "Okay, so we've tried it your way, now, I have a trick up my sleeve, that _never _fails."

Alfie's eyes grew wide. "Oh, no. Don't tell me you're thinking of-" he cut off at Jerome's smirk, then smiled. "It's shady, but it just might work."

* * *

**BeBe: Oooh… what's Jerome's big plan? I know! OMG, I watched the new episode {WARNING: SPOIL ALERT!} and I just can't believe it! Jerome can't fall in love with Mara! I mean, what if he does, and then Mara falls in love with him, then Mick gets back together with Amber-and since Amber has a boyfriend, Alfie gets with Patricia, and Nina and Fabian get together! Wait, I like Fabina. Well, the rest is just awful! I need a paper bag! *starts to hypervenalate* That can't happen! Jerome is mine-or, Bri's, or whatever! You know what I mean! He can't fall in love with Mara, he just can't!**

**On another topic, please review.**


	6. Chapter 6

**BeBe: There was no school, today so I decided to update. Yay, snow day! But, it's sad because my brother stole my orange popsicle, and now it's melted. So, this chapter is dedicated to my melted orange popsicle and my non melted purple popsicle because I'm paranoid.**

* * *

"What do you want me to do?" Bri asked, leaning forward, and putting her hands out in front of her to steady herself.

Fabian opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, the door slammed open. Bri turned to see Alfie standing in the threshold, panting, his eyes were frantic.

"Jerome's collapsed." He gasped, leaning against the door.

"What?" Amber asked, being the stereotypical blonde she was. A part of Bri wanted to roll her eyes, even though a part of her was asking the same question herself. Although, with her it was a rhetorical question instead of one that she expected an answer to.

"We were planning a prank we were going to pull on Bri-" nice real nice. That just made Bri want to help the boy all the more. (SARCASM!) "and he just collapsed."

Bri glanced at Fabian for a second, and could see the panic in his eyes now, too. Well, then what they were going to do was just going to have to wait. Everyone jumped up, and followed Alfie out the door.

Over the side of the stair case, Bri could see Jerome lying on the ground. They flew down the stairs, and right next to him, bending down over the boy, Bri got pushed to the front by somebody, though she didn't know who.

"Hey," she murmured, slightly shaking the unconscious boy. "Jerome? Are you alright?" Jerome didn't answer.

Bri sighed, and leaned her cheek up against him mouth, listening, feeling and watching for signs of breathing-a little tid bit she'd learned in middle school Health. There was none.

She sat up and turned to Nina. "Call a doctor." She ordered. Was it 911 for emergency here, too? She didn't know, and at the moment, didn't care.

Nina nodded, and went to go get her cell phone, but Alfie grabbed her by the upper arm. Bri wanted to groan, but was too focused on Jerome. She tilted his head up, so that she opened his air way, and put her lips to his. God, she didn't want to be doing this, but, sometimes you just have to.

She felt a hand push down on the back of her head, making it so she couldn't come back up. It was probably Alfie or Amber, trying to keep her breathing into Jerome's mouth. Stupid Brits, didn't know he only needed two regular breaths at a time.

But, then she realized something else. Her mouth had been open to get the air into Jerome's mouth, but suddenly there was an extra tongue in hers. Bri's eyes opened wide, and she stared down to see bright blue orbs smirking up into hers.

She pulled back, and wiped her mouth off, glaring at the obviously conscious boy. Jerome sat up and smiled at her, as she tried to rid the taste of him from her mouth.

"You ass!" she cried, accepting Fabian's hand. He pulled her up.

"Aw now you know you liked it." Jerome smirked up at her, Bri wanted to slap him.

Instead she felt tears come to her face, as she backed away from the Brit, still glaring at him. "Liked it? You stole my first kiss, you bastard!"

Jerome's eyes grew wide, and Bri realized that he hadn't known that that would be her first kiss. She didn't care, though. She grabbed Nina and Amber's hands, and tried to drag them behind her.

"Come on," she growled. "We were having a _mature _conversation upstairs?"

The other Sibuna club members reluctantly followed her up. Bri didn't blame them for being hesitant, she wasn't exactly in the best state of mind, what with just being lip-raped and all. Lip raped… can that even happen? Bri wondered, then mentally hit herself. Oh yeah, because _that's _the part to be focusing on, idiot.

She lead them up back into Nina and Amber's room, where they sat back down in a circle. "Now," she humphed. "Where were we?"

"Actually…." Nina said a bit timidly. "Maybe we should take a break from Sibuna, right now. I mean, it's obvious you're upset with Jerome at the moment."

Bri blinked, then shook her head. "No, I just can't think about him at the moment."

But, she knew that the others weren't going to give up, not even before she saw Amber smirk. Okay, so maybe Amber's smirk meant nothing, but still.

"Well…" the blonde smiled. "What if you could get a little payback on him?"

Bri raised an eyebrow, deciding to humor the girl, and smirked. Actually, she was quite intrigued, this may go somewhere. Probably not, but there was a chance it would. "Tell me more."

"Well," Amber continued. "Why don't you prank him, or something. You know, dish out what he gives you?"

The other four members glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. They couldn't believe that the girl that lacked two brain cells had been able to come up with a good idea. But, hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day, right?

"And how do you suppose we do that?" Fabian asked.

Amber smiled.

{3rd Person Jerome's p.o.v}

"Hey," Mick knocked on Jerome and Alfie's door a few hours later. "Come on, guys! Bri's taking us out!"

Alfie and Jerome glanced at each other, eyes wide. Why would she be taking _them _out after the prank they had pulled on her, earlier.

"We won't know unless we go." Alfie sighed, as if that answered all their problems.

Jerome nodded, and followed his friend out the door where the other members of the house were waiting at the bottom of the staircase with their coats on. Their own coats were slung over Bri's shoulders, and she gave them a look that said 'Hurry up!'

They went down the stairs, and hesitantly took the coats from her. "Why're you doing this?" Jerome whispered, as he pulled his on.

Bri shrugged, "Because I promised I would, and I don't hold grudges very well."

"But-"

"Come on!" she cried, moving behind him, and pushing him out the door. "I'm starving!"

Jerome sighed, and decided to walk on his own. Outside, there was a mini van parked-with no driver. He wondered just who was going to drive.

"Uh, I'm not getting in that." Mick scoffed. "My back still hurts from this morning's work out, and that will just _kill _me."

Bri sighed, and rolled her eyes. Jerome could tell that she was starting to get annoyed. "Come here," she sighed.

Mick gave her a surprised smirk, and scoffed, again. "Don't tell me you're going to crack my back?" he laughed.

"Just trust me." Bri sighed, turning so that she was facing away from Mick. She held her arms out behind her. "Stand back to back with me and loop your arms through mine."

Jerome smirked, and Mick moved over to Bri. It would be interesting to see how tiny Bri was going to be able to lift the massive bundle of muscle that everyone called Mick.

"This isn't going to work." Mick sighed, doing as Bri instructed.

From this angle, Jerome could see Bri's face as she rolled her eyes, and bent forward, lifting Mick off his feat. Jerome could hear Mick's back crack hundreds of times, before Bri set him back down. She didn't even look out of breath, damn that girl was stronger than she looked.

"Can we go, now?" she asked, then noticed as everyone stared at her wide eyed. "What? I grew up with four older brothers who needed their backs cracked constantly. You learn things."

At that, everyone shrugged, and went to hop into the mini van. Bri got in the drivers seat, Jerome in the passengers-much to everyone's insistence. Fabian, Nina and Amber were in the next row, Patricia and Alfie behind them, and Mara and Mick behind _them._

"Don't tell me you can drive." Jerome scoffed. The girl couldn't be of driving age, yet!

Bri smiled over at him, and gunned the engine. "There's a lot you don't know about me." She pulled out of the drive way.

"Well, are you even old enough to?"

He saw Bri draw in a slight gasp, then smile, mysteriously. "It's probably best if you don't know."

"Alright." Jerome sighed, reaching over her. "Give me the wheel."

"Wha-No!" Bri cried, and slapped his hand away. "We'll be fine, trust me!" Jerome went to grab the wheel, again but stopped at her glare. He sighed, and slumped back in his seat, which caused the blonde to smile. "All right, guys!" she cried, looking into the rearview mirror. "I'm taking you out to McDonald's anyone got a problem with that?"

There were a few cheers from behind them, and Jerome knew that there were no problems. Soon, they pulled into a McDonald's drive through, where Bri pressed on the brakes.

"Welcome to McDonald's, how may I help you?" a male voice came from the other end of the line.

The next thing that came out of Bri's mouth surprised Jerome.

"Yes, I'd like a caffeine free diet water with just a splash of ice, please."

* * *

**BeBe: Paranoid author, paranoid chapter, noticing anything in common?**


	7. Chapter 7

**BeBe: Wow… didn't realize that that last chapter was so… odd until just now. Wow….**

Bri clutched the wheel tightly, and tried to keep from grinning. She couldn't believe that Amber had come up with this plan.

'Be weird.' She had said. 'Even _Jerome _can't handle a girl that's super weird. If that doesn't work, be whiney and obnoxious.'

Bri sighed, before specifically saying that her order was 'To go' and inching her way behind the car in front of her. She could sense Jerome sneaking peeks at her from the corner of his eye, and she didn't blame him. Hell, she'd be doing the same thing if she were in his position.

The others knew about the plan, so they weren't freaked out like the boy next to her was, but that didn't lessen her embarrassment. She wanted to crawl under a rock, and die.

Still, she kept inching forward, and even managed a smile as they approached the drive in window.

The cashier poked his head out, and frowned. "I'm sorry, but we're all out of Dr. Pepper, do you want anything else?"

Bri glanced back at Mick, who shrugged and mumbled. "Coke."

She turned back to the cashier, and repeated what Mick had said. The cashier's frown deepened. "Is Pepsi all right?"

"Is Monopoly money all right?" Bri had to force the words out of her mouth.

Now, it looked as if the man's frown couldn't get any deeper, so Bri let a light chuckle escape, and nodded. "Yeah, Pepsi's alright." She knew Mick was okay with Pepsi because she'd seen him nod slightly in the rear view mirror when the cashier had asked.

She quickly paid and inched her way to the next window, making a mental note to never come to this McDonald's, again. She'd completely ruined her reputation, here. And for what? So that Jerome stopped trying to flirt with her? God, it better work….

Bri grabbed her food, and pulled into the parking lot so that they could eat in the car.

"So…" she started, awkwardly, taking a bite of her Big Mac. She'd never been a good conversation starter, which made this suck. "Do you guys have any embarrassing stories?"

"You mean, besides all of Jerome's failed attempts at picking up girls?" Mick laughed, nudging the blonde in the front.

"Or all of the pick up lines he's tried to use?" Alfie joined in.

Bri smiled, "Oh, I'd like to hear some of those." She turned to face the boy, smirking. "Come on, try some on me, and we'll see how many good come backs I can think of."

Jerome glared, and looked as if he were about to say no, when the others in the back started cheering, and urging him on. Weird, absently Bri jokingly wondered if they were all high, or something. Finally, Jerome sighed, and smiled.

"Fine." He grabbed her hands, and looked lovingly into her eyes. Bri had to fight back a gulp, and remind herself what they were doing. "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put 'I' and 'U' together."

Bri raised an eyebrow, and half smirked. "Really? Cuz, I'd put 'F' and 'U' together."

Jerome glared, but tried again. "Where have you been all my life?"

"Avoiding you."

And, so that's how it went for the next half hour. He said random pick up lines, and she shot lines back.

"Have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Yes, and that's why I don't go there, anymore."

"I'd go to the ends of the world for you."

"But would you stay there?"

"So, your house, or mine?"

"Both. You go to yours, and I'll go to mine."

Until finally, Jerome gave up, and slumped down in his seat, utterly defeated. Bri laughed, and hit her hand on the dashboard.

"Seriously, I said you couldn't beat me." She chuckled.

Jerome grumbled something under his breath, and hit her over the side of the head. Bri could tell that it had been meant to be playful, but it caught her so off guard that she went slamming into the window.

"Ow…" she moaned, rubbing her head, but then her eyes went wide as she remembered something. It was weird because, she was sure that it wasn't her own memory. Everything was too strange, she was in a room, that was brightly lit with someone screaming "It's a girl!"

Bri's eyes widened as the familiar whisper came back into her mind, the whisper that told her to hate British people.

Shaking her head, she came back to the real world, where everyone was staring at her, wide eyed. She slammed on the accelerator, and sped off towards Anubis house, breaking every speeding law on the way.

As soon as they reached the house, she jumped out, and grabbed Patricia, Nina, Fabian, Amber and Alfie pulling them out of the van, herself. She had recently been told that Alfie was also in on it, as well, though it was nice to know that that had been kept a secret to her-NOT!

"Go up to my room." She hurriedly whispered. "I have something I need to tell you; it's urgent."

The five nodded, and ran in the house, and up the stairs with Bri close at their heels. They were so preoccupied, that they didn't notice a certain flirt follow them up.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome slumped on the floor, right outside Bri's room. The girl had been acting weird all night, and he was determined to find out why. He put his ear to the door, to get a better ear shot of their conversation.

"Guys…." Bri was saying. "I just remembered when I heard the voice."

There was a collective of gasps from behind the door, Jerome pressed his ear up even more, trying to catch any mumbling there might be going on.

"Are you sure?" Fabian asked.

He imagined Bri nodding, as Nina said. "Well, when was it?"

There was a huge breath, before the words came out of Bri's mouth. "The day I was born."

**BeBe: And that's where it ends! Mean, I know. Tee hee!**


	8. Chapter 8

**BeBe: Ohmigod! I watched the final episode the other day, and I just loved it! I almost cried at the end when Nina and Fabian got together-I'm emotional, get used to it! And, when it turned out that Nina was the chosen one-I mean, come on! Who didn't see that coming? Anywho, here's the next chapter!**  
**Wait, one more thing. I know Jerome figured out about the club, but this takes place before he does.**

* * *

Bri counted five long seconds, as her friends continued to stare at her. She glanced around what seemed like a billion times in that short moment.

"Are you sure?" Alfie asked, leaning back on his heals.

Bri nodded, and picked at the dirt under her nails. "I remember everything now. I was in a hospital room full of doctors, and I remember seeing my mother in a bed, sweating."

"Well, but didn't you say you had two younger brothers? Maybe it happened when _they _were born." Fabian opted. Bri wasn't surprised that he was trying to find a more logical explanation. It seemed almost fitting that he should-since he was the logical person of the group.

She shook her head. "No, because I wasn't allowed in the room while they were being delivered. And, the doctor had yelled 'It's a girl!' I don't think they would yell that for two boys.

"She has a point…." Nina murmured. "Well, this certainly is a twist."

"Wow…" Amber gasped. "It must be so cool, remembering the day you were born!"

Bri shook her head, and tried not to laugh. This was a serious situation-but, damn Amber could be so funny at times. "No, I only remember that fraction, nothing else."

"Well, nevertheless, it's something to go on." Fabian jumped in, obviously trying to keep everyone on topic. "Now, we have one mystery solved. Could we please get to the other one?"

They all looked down at the journal. Nina and Amber glanced at each other, and bit there lips.

"Actually…." Nina muttered. "We have something to tell you. While everyone was getting ready to go to McDonald's, we took the chance to look at the picture-and, it's pretty creepy."

"Creepy how?" Alfie asked, "Blood creepy?"

Leave it to Alfie Lewis to think of Blood right away when he hears the word "Creepy". Didn't he ever think of anything else that wasn't gross-or girls?

Nina shook her head, and opened up the cover, where the note and the picture were laying, upside down. She carefully turned the picture over, and everyone gasped at what they saw.

Bri reached down to touch the picture not believing her eyes. It was old, but she could get a sense of the colors. So, sure the hair was a different color, but there was no mistaking who it was.

"…Whoa…." Alfie muttered, for once at a loss of words, staring down at the photograph.

"That is creepy." Patricia gasped.

None of them seemed to be able to tear their eyes away. Well, except for Nina and Amber, whom Bri caught glancing around out of the corner of her eye.

"That's not all of it, though." Nina whispered.

Everyone slowly glanced up, as if, if they looked away from the picture it would disappear. Bri realized that it was getting harder for her to breathe.

"Amber and I got curious, so we glanced to the back of the journal, and the girl in the picture-is named Brianna. Or, Bri as her friends liked to call her." Nina's voice was hollow, and disoriented.

Everyone's eyes shot back down to the picture-of Bri herself.

{3rd Person's Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome desperately wanted to see who was in the picture, and what made it so special. He did admit that it was weird that her nickname was the same as Bri's, but really, what did it matter? Tons of people probably had that nickname.

He pushed his ear up harder against the door, as if that would make it so he could see the photo, himself. But, it didn't do any good, since the kids behind it, had lapsed back into a silence, that sounded as if it were going to last forever.

"It's almost 10." Bri finally whispered, in a voice that sounded as if she were in a faraway place. "We'd better start getting to bed."

"Yeah…." Fabian sounded just the same. "Let's sleep on this, and maybe tomorrow we can come up with a logical explanation-it's Sunday tomorrow, right?"

"I don't know." Patricia sighed, "It better be."

Suddenly, Jerome heard shuffling as the six kids on the other side got up and headed for the door. He jumped up, and ran to the top of the stairs, to make it look like he had just been coming up, as Bri, Alfie, Patricia and Fabian appeared from the other side.

"Hey!" he said, cheerfully, before pretending to get a good look at their faces. "Yo, what's up? You blokes look like you've seen a ghost."

"Something like that." Bri muttered, putting a hand to her head. "Something like that."


	9. Chapter 9

**BeBe: Gah! I can't believe how long it's been since I've updated! Sorry, I got hooked on these two new animes, Skip Beat and Soul Eater. The guy who plays Death the Kid from Soul Eater is coming to town in May, so I just **_**had **_**to get into it, otherwise I'd only like five of the shows that he's in! I'm paranoid, I know. Anyway, here's the next chappie!**

* * *

Bri ran a hand through her hair as she sat in class the next day. She couldn't get the picture of herself out of her mind. How was it that this Brianna chick looked so much like her, and even had the same nickname as her? Was she a distant ancestor or something?

Or, what if Brianna had something to do with the voice inside her head the day she was born? Bri had tried to remember who the voice had sounded like, but it sounded so much like her. What if-?

Bri shook her head, and kept herself from laughing out loud. Mick was sitting right next to her, and considering he wasn't apart of Sibuna, she'd have a hard time explaining what was so funny. But, it was just so insane! That kind of stuff only happened in TV shows like Inuyasha, and Fushigi Yuugi. Not in real life.

Then again, everything else that had been happening was so weird that it just may be real. Bri bit her lip, and though real hard. Was it possible that she was Brianna's… she couldn't even bring herself to think the word. No matter how unrealistic the things that had happened were, it was nearly impossible to believe that she could be….

Suddenly the room went up in flames. It was so weird, one second everything was normal, and the next there was fire everywhere. Bri jumped up in her seat and looked around frantically. She could feel the orange flames licking at her back, and a horrible scream came from her throat.

She looked to her left, where Mick was sitting-_should've _been sitting, but he wasn't there. Her eyes widened as she saw his empty chair before realizing that it wasn't just him who was gone, but the rest of the class. She was all alone. When had that happened?

"No!" she screamed, jumping on top of the desk. "No! No! No! No! No!"

"Miss. Faye!" she heard her teacher yell.

Bri opened her eyes to find herself in the class room that was full of students, with all the walls still intact, and not a single flame anywhere. She was on top of her desk with the teacher glaring up at her, and all the kids giving her weird looks. Especially Jerome and Alfie who were in front of her.

"Miss. Faye, do you really hate my class that much?" the teacher huffed, as if almost hurt.

Bri blushed, and accepted Mick's offered hand, before sitting down. "S-Sorry." She mumbled, "I guess I dozed off and had a nightmare."

"Well, make sure it doesn't happen again." With that, the teacher went back to teaching.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome couldn't help but stare at Bri the next period. They were the only two kids from Anubis House in that class, so they sat right next to each other. Bri looked like she was in deep thought, and only seemed to be soaking in part of what the teacher was saying. Which was weird, because most of the time, she paid strict attention.

What had happened to her last period? She hadn't dozed off at all, Jerome knew because he'd been watching her the entire time. Unless, she learned how to sleep with her eyes open.

Her head tilted to the side, and she pursed her lips, as if trying to figure something out. Jerome couldn't help but see her actions as adorable, even if slightly confusing. He was trying to figure out what she was thinking, but she'd slammed a wall down over her eyes so all he could see was empty nothingness.

The fear in her eyes before had been real. She'd obviously seen something truly terrifying-something that couldn't be a dream. Jerome was beginning to grow suspicious over what her, Nina, Amber, Fabian, Patricia, and Alfie were doing. If it was really something that scary, than they should just quit.

His eyes hardened, as her eyes widened, and she fell back against the chair, breathing hard. He _was _going to figure out what was going on-even if it killed him.

{Bri's p.o.v}

Bri found Fabian and Nina talking to each other by Nina's locker. She sped up to them, and grabbed their shoulders, not giving a damn if she was interrupting or not. This couldn't wait.

"Get the others and meet me in the clearing in 20 minutes, it's urgent.." She hurridly whispered.

Fabian and Nina gave her a strange look, but she must've looked pretty serious, because the next second they were nodding, and rushing off towards the other Sibuna member's lockers.

Bri took the extra time on her hands to lean up against the wall, close her eyes, and take a few needed deep breaths. She couldn't believe all that had happened in the past few days. Was it really only a little over a month ago that she was sitting safely in Mr. Ro's class back in America boredly watching Danny and James have a spit ball war?

She sunk to the floor, and pulled her knees up to her chest, caught up in the old days. Oh, how much she wished to be back in Lincoln high, flirting with James, knowing nothing would come of it. Back to riding the bus home with Jack, and getting chocolate milk poured on their heads. Back to helping George out with her karate. Back to when she wished that something interesting and abnormal would happen in her life.

Right now, she just wanted her life to go back to normal.

{Flashback}

_They were all at the 8__th__ grade dance. Bri and James had gone together because everyone expected them to. Everyone assumed that sooner or later they were going to become a couple since they were best friends, and James's father just happened to be Bri's doctor. No one would listen to them when they said that they were just about as interested in each other as George was interested in Jack. Just friends, nothing else._

_James had still played the part of a good date. He had picked her up on his "moped" which just turned out to be nothing but a dirk bike which they both had laughed at. He'd brought her a corsage which was actually just a crappy bracelet from the dollar store with two roses from his back yard glued to it._

_They were standing in the far corner of the gym, with George, Danny, Jack, Nick, and Liz. Each one of them refusing to dance, considering the fact that they all sucked at it. Well, okay so James was an awesome dancer, but he wouldn't dance because he claimed it to be "unmanly" whatever that meant._

_"This dance is sooo stupid." Danny sighed, twirling a piece of her curly blonde hair._

_"I know." Jack groaned, leaning up against Nick. The two black haired kids had started going out a few weeks back, and were all but inseparable. "But it's mandatory if we wanna pass Drama."_

_"Which is stupid in itself." Danny exhaled, and leant up against the wall, crossing her arms and ankles. "Why don't we just ditch, I mean, they already counted us as present, so we have to get at least a C if we cut now." _

_Bri shot her a glare, "Because some of us can't afford a C." It was true. They had all signed up for Drama because it seemed like an easy A, not to mention it was the only class that they all were taking together. Danny was the only one who wasn't failing drastically, and if the others didn't get at least a B, they'd have to repeat the 8__th__ grade._

_"Well, then why don't you guys just go out there and dance?" Danny shrugged. "They're giving extra credits to everyone who does. That way, we'll get to leave early."_

_George yawned, then sighed. "There _has _to be an easier way to get out of this hell hole. Plus, there's only two boys. I'd need someone to dance with."_

_James rolled his eyes, before slipping his arm around Bri's shoulders. "Unless one of you girls work up the nerve to throw up, there's no way that'll happen." When everyone stared at him with disgusted looks on his face, he shrugged. "Either way, just a few more hours till we all get to go back to my house for a movie marathon."_

_Bri almost giggled at the thought. All the girls had tricked their parents by saying that they were going over to one another's houses, so they could sneak over to James's for a huge slumber party. His parents were gone for the weekend, and so they were going to stay up all night watching monster movies._

_"I can't last a few more hours!" George cried. Everyone turned to give her a look that said 'You know how to get out.'_

_"Oh fine." She grumbled, before pulling back her red hair, and turning away from the group. "Hold my hair."_

_Bri grabbed the firey clump, and looked away as George stuck her finger down her throat, triggering her gag reflex, and the next moment, she heard puking sounds coming from the red head._

_A half hour later they were all laughing as they rode their bikes over to James's house._

{End Flashback}

Bri slowly opened her eyes, coming back from the memory. She looked up, and gasped. Holy shit! She was over five minutes late!

She got up and practically sprinted towards the clearing where the Sibuna members were waiting for her.

"Finally!" Patricia cried. "If you're going to call a meeting, at least make sure you're going to get here on time!"

"S-Sorry." Bri panted, placing her hands on her knees. "I got lost in my thoughts. It won't happen again. Besides, this is important."

"Is this about what happened to you during history?" Alfie asked, "Because you were seriously acting weird then."

Bri nodded, and supported herself against the tree. "It's kinda a long story…."

"Well, then sum it down." Nina offered.

Nodding, again, Bri thought for a second. "I know who Brianna is-or really, who I am." She hardly registered their confused looks before hurrying on. "I realized why we look so much alike, and why our names are so similar."

She stopped for dramatic effect, loving the looks that her fellow club members were giving her. "It's because I'm her reincarnation."


	10. Chapter 10

Bri leaned up against the door of Anubis house. The others had sent her home, thinking that she was sick. She didn't blame, them. She probably would've done the same thing, had it been one of them that had said it to her. But how in all the hells else would you explain everything that had been happening? Of course she was Brianna's reincarnation, there was no two ways about it!

Oh well, she'd just have to talk to them, again later. Trudy was probably out shopping and who knew where Victor was so she was alone. Not that she was going to sneak anywhere she wasn't supposed to go-it wasn't nearly as exciting when she was alone.

Instead, she went upstairs into Amber and Nina's room to grab the text book that Nina had borrowed from her the other day. She refused to fall back on her school work just because her friends thought she was crazy.

She entered the crazilly pink room, with defiance. As if it were her own. She saw the book lying on Amber's bed, and grabbed it without thinking twice why it wasn't with Nina's stuff-considering the fact that she was the one who'd borrowed it.

As soon as she entered her room, she sat on her bed, and finally looked at it. Her eye twitched as she looked at the cover. It wasn't her text book that she had grabbed. No, it was a scrap book. The cover had a heart on it with a picture of her and Jerome studying together from a few weeks ago taped inside. Below the heart, is said _Berome._

Bri groaned, before tossing the book into the trash can, not wanting to see what kinds of photos were in there. Damn, she was going to _kill _Amber.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

They were all on their way back to Anubis house. Alfie had told him that they'd sent Bri home ahead of them, on account of the fact that she didn't feel well.

Said girl was leaning up against the front post as they approached the house, glaring at Amber. The blonde raised her eyebrows on account of the other blonde's glare-obviously showing that she had no clue why Bri would be angry with her.

"I made dinner." Bri hissed, throwing open the door-rather harshly. "The table's already set, go sit down where ever you'd like."

"Isn't it a bit early for dinner?" Fabian asked, as they walked through the thresh hold.

Jerome watched as Bri focused her death glare more on the black haired boy. "Go. Sit. Down." she ordered through her teeth.

Fabian put his hands up in surrender, and followed the others into the kitchen. Jerome wondered what could've made the usual mellow girl so mad. This was just one weird day when it came to her.

Bri took her usual seat between him and Patricia, before dishing herself a ton of baked beans. On any regular day, Jerome would've asked why in the world would she wanna have a farting contest, but he could tell that if he tried that then, he'd probably find his head in the toilet.

"Hey-you okay?" he asked, after the awkward silence had finally been taken over by chit chat. Bri turned to look at him, but strangely enough, with out the glare, before blushing, and looking away.

"I-I've been better." she sighed, before taking an actual bite of her mashed potatoes.

"I would assume so, especially with that whole episode in class, earlier. By the way, what was all that about?"

Bri's eyes widened, and she shook her head. "I just remembered that I had forgotten-certain stuff that I needed, here."

Jerome could tell that she was lying, but he didn't have the nerve to tell her so. He just wanted to make it through the day alive.

"Perhaps you were hallucinating? I heard that you weren't feeling good-which, I guess you must be feeling better, if you were able to make all this. Without Trudy's help." Jerome suddenly realized that he wasn't acting like his usual self, and that's she might grow weary if he didn't. So he smiled seductivelly, before leaning towards her on his hand. "Unless, of course, you did this all just for me~"

"As if!" Bri cried, slapping his hand away that had gone up to stroke her cheek. "I only did this because I promised, and I was in the mood for chicken."

"Sure, okay." Jerome chuckled. "Whatever you say..."

"I'm not gonna argue with you." Bri sighed, taking a bite of her chicken leg.

"Sure you aren't. Hon, you're gonna argue with me whether you like it or not. You know you can't resist arguing when someone is saying something you don't agree with."

"I'm through." Bri stood up, taking her plate. "You just ruined my aptite, Jerome. I hope you're happy."

Jerome smiled after her, as she made her way into the kitchen to clear her plate. He didn't really realize how boring the day was when she wasn't around to annoy. It was what he was always looking forward to.

Suddenly the bell rang, and before Trudy could come out of her room, Bri was yelling "I'll get it!"

The blonde ran out of the kitchen, through the dining hall, and into the entry way. She disappeared from sight, shortly after.

All was silent as they listened to her unlock the door, and open it-only to be followed by a high pitched scream shortly after.

Seconds later, they were all rocketing out of their chairs, and into the hallway where Bri could be seen staring at a boy with red hair, and a baseball cap. Tears were in Bri's eyes, and she wrapped her arms around the boy, smiling.

The boy looked over Bri's shoulder and smiled at the group of friends. "Hey." he said, tipping his cap and winking. "I'm George."

* * *

**BeBe: Thank you to moonbeam87 for giving me the scrapbook idea!**


	11. Chapter 11

Bri pulled away to smile at George. The red head was wearing a baseball cap that her hair was pulled up in, and a sweater that hid all her curves. All in all, she basically looked like a boy. That was gonna have to change soon-George had the _worst _winter fashion.

"You're early!" she laughed, placing her hands on the other girl's shoulders.

George smirked, and patted Bri on the head. "Maybe I'm not early. Maybe _you're _just late."

Rolling her eyes, Bri pulled George inside, before shutting the door and turning towards the others. "Guys, this is my friend, George. George, this is Fabian, Nina, Alfie, Patricia, Amber-" she growled that name, still not forgetting the scrapbook even with George here- "Mick and Mara."

George smiled, and held out her hand, which Nina took. They smiled at each other, as they shook. "Nice to meet you." She murmured.

"Hey!" Jerome yelled, storming to the front. "You forgot me!"

Bri's eyes widened in fake innocence. "Oh, yes. How could I forget you?" she turned back to George, and motioned towards the big haired boy. "George, this is… um…" her eyebrows furrowed together in fake confusion. "Um… what was your name again?"

Jerome growled, before glaring at the two Americans. "I'm Jerome Clark. Proprietor of this house, and I would appreciate it if you guys would give me the credit I deserve."

"Which is what we're doing." Bri smirked, before grabbing George's wrist. "Come, you must be tired after that long flight-and jet lagged too boot. We'll get you into bed so you can rest. Then I'll go out to get some McDonald's so we can celebrate properly."

"But… we just ate." Fabian pointed out.

"One," Bri shot back, holding up a finger. "We may have, but George hasn't. And two" she held up another finger. "There's always room for McDonalds!"

And with that, she hauled George up the stairs.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

{A half hour later}

Bri had finally left to go get the promised food-Nina and Patricia had gone with her. Mick, Mara and Fabian were studying, and Amber was up in her room probably trying to figure out what to wear. So it was just him and Alfie standing outside the blonde American's room.

"Ready?" Alfie asked, hand poised in a knocking position. They were going to confront George and make sure that nothing was going on between him and Bri.

"I was born ready." Jerome hissed, swinging open the door before his best friend could knock.

George was sitting on the bed, fingering through a book of some sorts. He glanced up and his eyes widened as he saw the two boys. Hastily, he shoved the book under his pillow.

"H-Hey." He stuttered, obviously shocked from seeing them in their room. "What do you guys want?"

"We want to know what the hell's between you and Bri." Jerome growled, advancing on the ginger threateningly.

George's eyes widened, "Um, excuse me? What?"

"You know what we mean." Alfie's voice was calm-the complete opposite of Jerome's. "What's going on between you and the blonde that just left to get us McDonalds?"

"Uh… we're just friends…." George said.

"Don't play that crap! She told us that you guys have shared a bed! And I know that when a guy and a girl share a bed, that means they've done more than just sleep!" Jerome exploded, grabbing George by the collar of his shirt.

George looked confused for a second. "Guy and a girl…?" he asked, before glancing down and laughing. "Oh, I see now!"

"So, are you going to answer the question or not?" Jerome growled.

"Let go of me, first."

Jerome breathed in, than let go of the red head. George stepped around him and slowly made his way towards the door.

Once he reached the thresh hold, he turned back and smirked. "Well, I'm not supposed to say anything to you guys, but I guess it won't hurt to say that you're right."

"About what?" Alfie asked, sounding just as confused as Jerome felt.

George's smirk grew wider. "Well, I guess you're right in saying that we've seen each other naked." And left.

Jerome sank to his knees, not believing what he had just heard.


	12. Chapter 12

"Hey, Bri!" George sang skipping into their room. She had a towel wrapped around her and her hair was wet-obviously from just getting out of the shower. "What was up with that scrapbook of you and Jerome?"

Bri's head shot up from the book she'd been reading. "What?" she hissed.

"That scrapbook I found in the garbage. Are you and him like... an item or something?" George smiled, as she pulled another baggy sweater from the closet and throwing it on.

"No!" Bri cried, bouncing up from the bed. "Not at all! That was just something Amber made as a joke! There's nothing going on between us!"

George laughed, and sat on the bed. "Well, good. That means that James still has a chance." Bri felt her eye twitch-she knew that George was just teasing but it was still annoying. "Besides nothing quite added up."

"What do you mean?" Bri asked, more than a bit confused.

"Well, Jerome came in here earlier and nearly beat me up, trying to figure out if me and you were together." George kicked her legs, staring up at the celing.

Bri's eyes grew huge as she felt anger wash through her. "He nearly beat you up?" she cried, before something else sunk in. "Why would he wonder if we were together?"

"That's just what I was wondering. But then, I started thinking-did you ever specify that I was a _girl?" _George asked.

"Yeah... To Amber, Nina, Fabian, Patricia, Mara and Mick... Oh, God." Bri sighed, and sat down next to George on the bed. Great! Jerome and Alfie thought she was rooming with a guy! And... what had she told them, earlier? That the two of them had shared a bed? Oh, great...

"This is bad." she groaned, throwing her head in her hands. "What must they think of me?"

"Don't see it as a set back!" George laughed. "See it as an oppertunity! You told me that the two of them keep pulling pranks on you, so now lets pull one on them!"

"I'm not quite sure I see where you're trying to so with this..." Bri muttered, still upset.

"Well, why don't we _pretend _we're going out?" George smiled.

Bri thought about it. She was still mad at them for the whole kissing incident earlier, and there had been many more pranks. Plus, maybe it would help with her payback and Amber for making that stupid scrapbook.

"We don't have to kiss, right?" she asked.

"No, we don't have to make it _that _believable!" Geoge cried, pushing her away as if the mere thought discusted her-which it probably did.

"Okau!" Bri giggled, she threw herself at George and hugged her for like the billionth time that day. "You're the best friend ever, ya' know that?"

"Of course! I'm just _the best!"_

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome and Alfie were pacing back and forth in their room. Upstairs they could hear banging and moaning coming from Bri's room-one's that sounded hushed as if they didn't want anyone to hear.

"They're getting hot and heavy!" Jerome cried, sinking to his knees, as he stared up at the celing. He so badly wanted to go up there and confront that damned red head, but if Victor caught him-which he probably would-he'd be in big trouble.

"Just shut it!" Alfie hissed, "They'll hear you!"

"I hope they do!" Jerome yelled, trying to aim his voice at the room above him. "Then maybe they'll stop torturing me so!"

Alfie sighed, before pulling out ear plugs and handing them to his best friend. "Here, put these in so you won't have to hear them anymore."

Jerome grumbled and took the earplugs. "It won't help, I'll still know what they're doing." nevertheless, he put them in.

{Bri's p.o.v}

God, she'd forgotten how much George moved in her sleep. She was constently thrashing around, causing the bed to jump. Everytime she did so, it hurt Bri's back which caused her to moan, mingling in with George's own. Okay, so tomorrow night, the redhead was sleeping on the ground-best friend or not.

* * *

**BeBe: Yes I know these last two chappies have been short but they've been leading up to the big climaxy thing, so that's why. Sorry!**


	13. Chapter 13

Bri stretched as she got up the next day. She'd hardly gotten any sleep last night, and was tired to the bone. How in the world was she supposed to pretend to be in love with George when she could hardly keep her eyes open?

A knock came on her door, as she was buttoning up her vest. Bri glanced quickly at George-who was still sleeping-to make sure she was decent before answering.

"We're decent!" she called.

Fabian stuck his black head in. "Come into Nina's room." He hurriedly whispered. "There's something you have to see."

Bri turned around, eyebrow raised. She finished putting her hair in it's ponytail before asking. "What?"

"It's the diary. Nina found a clue in there."

With that, Fabian ducked out. Bri glanced over at George-the red head probably wouldn't be getting up for another few… hours, so she was more than likely okay to go.

She followed the black haired boy down to the overly pink room. Truthfully, she didn't want to answer-scared that Amber would have a "Secret Plan to get Bri and Jerome Together" poster hung up, but the wall was bare when she entered.

"What's going on?" she asked, sitting down in the makeshift circle, her friends had made in the room.

Amber raised an eyebrow. "Didn't get much sleep last night?"

Bri touched the bag under her eyes before sighing. "Not really. I forgot how much George… moves in his sleep."

"Yeah." Alfie muttered. "We heard."

Bri had filled everyone in on hers and George's plan right before going to bed-and the others had been all for it. They were sick of Alfie and Jerome's pranks, and agreed that it was time for some well deserved payback.

Bri worked up a blush before looking over at Nina. She didn't know why Alfie was mad, but decided to let him keep thinking what he was thinking. "So, what's up with the diary?" she asked. "Fabian said you found some kind of… clue in it?"

"Uh, yeah." Nina blinked, getting back to the task on hand. "I was flipping through it last night-I know we haven't had much time what with getting ready for George but I couldn't sleep and decided to have a look. Bri… anna, mentioned a box that's hidden in the attic."

"A box?" Patricia asked, leaning forward. "In the attic?" her voice sounded disbelieving.

Nina nodded. "Yeah. I think we should go look for it."

"Obviously." Amber smiled.

"It also mentioned how to open it." Nina continued, as if Amber hadn't spoken. "It says that it's locked and the only way to… well, it really just says what the key is."

"Huh?" Fabian asked. "Wait, I'm confused."

"And you're not the only one." Patricia muttered. "Nina, you're not making any sense."

"No, just listen." Nina muttered. "It says that 'the key lies within the hand of the person with both mine and Victor's blood.'"

"Lies within the hand?" Alfie asked. "What could that mean?"

Everyone turned to look at Fabian, who shrugged. "Why does everyone just assume I'll know the answer?" he asked, looking as if he were hurt.

"Maybe because of the simple fact that you usually do." Bri shot back, before sighing. "Alright, just, at least tell us a guess."

Fabian thought it over for a moment, before sighing. "Well, the key probably is owned by the decendent of both of them. And for Alfie's sake, that means that one of Victor's decendents and one of Bri...anna's decendents had sex and the girl got knocked up."

Everyone turned to Bri, this time. "Oh!" she cried. "So just because I'm Brianna's reincarnation that means I have to know who it is?"

Fabian smirked. "Not so fun being on the other side of the table, huh?"

Bri rolled her eyes before pointing back down at a specific part. "It says lies _within. _Which means the person must have it _inside _their hand, bimbos." she shook her head. "Aren't you guys supposed to be smart?"

"Just suggesting all the possiblities." Nina shot back, before sighing. "Listen, why don't we stop for today. Fabian and I will track down all of Victor's decendents while you guys get breakfast, and then we'll meet back up here for annalasys."

"Sounds good." Patricia shrugged.

Everyone but Nina and Fabian got up and left.

"I bet it's just an excuse to be alone." Alfie smirked, before nudging Bri in the ribs. "So they can do... ya know...?" he winked twice.

Bri gave him a horrified look before saying "That's disgusting."

Alfie laughed. "Oh, like you're one to talk. Me and Jerome heard you and George last night. Try being quiet from now on, nearly gave the bloke a heart attack 'deed you did."

"I have no clue what you're talking about, Alfie." Bri snorted, before her eyes grew wide. Of course! They must've taken George's restless sleeping the wrong way! Oh, could this prank get any easier?

They all sat down to breakfast-George wasn't up yet, surprise surprise. That girl could probably sleep through a hurricane.

"How was your sleep?" Bri asked, as she sat next to Jerome. Upon a certain red head's arrival, her cooking fee had been put on hold. "I hope me and George didn't keep you up all night."

"N-Not at all." Jerome shot her a glare.

Bri could hardly contain her laugh.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome couldn't stand watching her talk as if what had happened last night was no biggie. He wanted to kill George for touching his woman! Wait, his woman, since when did he start to think of the annyoing, hairbrained, freakishly-strong Bri as his woman? Oh, to hell with it already, he loved her!

"Actually, it was a bit interesting." he forced the smirk onto his face to hide his pain. "I never knew that you could feel such... pleasure-or scream so loud." god, how he hated to say those words.

Bri blinked before looking at him. She had been in the middle of biting into a waffle, and now the fork was sticking out of her mouth. Jerome worked to hide his blush-she was just too damn cute!

Bri took the fork out before swallowing and asking. "W-What?"

"Yeah, I mean 'Oh, George! George!'" He did a horrible imitation of her voice. "I mean, you'd've thought that you were at a baseball game screaming 'Go! Go! Faster! Faster!'!"

He was lieing of course, he didn't know of anything else that had happened after he'd put those earplugs in. Those things had worked like a charm-he could only hope that he got it right.

"Uh, yeah." Bri murmured. "O-Of course."

She looked as if she were about to say more, but Fabian and Nina chose that moment to come bursting in.

"Guys..." Fabian panted. "Patricia, Bri, Alfie, Amber, you'd guys better come look at this."

Bri glanced over at the redhead, before they both shrugged and the better part of the table got up. Jerome made to follow, but Bri stopped him.

"Don't." she said. "This has nothing to do with you."

{Bri's p.o.v}

They all went back into Nina and Amber's room, before crowding around Fabian at the computer. He was desperatly trying to get screensaver off.

"What's wrong?" Amber asked.

"We were searching through Victor's decendents, and you'll never guess who came up as his grand daughter." Nina explained, just as Fabian managed to pull up the website.

Everyone gasped at the name.

**Brittany L. Faye.**


	14. Chapter 14

**BeBe: Sorry it's been a while. Meh laptop died and I couldn't find the charger because my brother had played with it, but I'm back, now!**

* * *

Bri stared at the computer in disbelief. There was no way that Victor could be her grandfather! No way in hell! The internet lied all the time.

But, there was no way that Fabian would use a site that he thought was unreliable. And she had never met her mother's father before and she'd also never really heard much about him. All her mother would ever say was that he was a jerk who didn't deserve to be a part of the family.

She bit her lip and continued to blink at the words.

"You guys do realize what this means, right?" Fabian asked.

To tell the truth, Bri had been too shocked to find out that she was related to Victor to really think of anything else.

"That she has Victor's blood running through her veins….." Patricia breathed.

"And since she's Brianna's reincarnation…" Fabian didn't have to finish the sentence.

Everyone turned to look at Bri, who was feeling weak. "I can't believe it…." she whispered., then shook her head. "I need to sit down."

As if she were about to faint, Nina and Patricia each grabbed one of her hands, and led her to Amber's bed. Bri put a hand to her head as she tried to sink everything in.

"Maybe this should be it for the day." Nina murmured, glancing at Fabian. "I know that we're really _just _starting to get somewhere, but I think Bri already has enough to take in as it is."

Fabian nodded. "It's Friday, anyway and there's no school. Let's just forget about all this for the rest of the day."

"Besides," Patricia smirked at Bri, "It's your first full day with George. You should spend some quality time with 'your man'." the air quotations were added with her eyes since Alfie was also in the room.

"Oh, I think she had enough quality time with him last night." Alfie grumbled, shaking his head. "Nearly gave Jerome a heart attack."

Bri smirked weakly at the brit. "Didn't you already say that?"

Alfie shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Had to, again."

Bri rolled her eyes, got up, and started toward the door. "Well, then. I'll just go wake up my man, right now so he doesn't miss breakfast."

But George was already heading towards the stairs as Bri opened the door. Wow, talk about good timing.

The others filed out behind her as the redhead caught up to them. Bri made a quick motion with her head towards Alfie, which caused George to smirk. She threw an arm around Bri, and nuzzled the top of her head.

"I missed you this morning, when I woke up and you weren't there." she murmured in a voice that sounded so in love that even _Bri _thought she meant it for a second.

But she giggled after she caught herself, as they made their way down the stairs. "Sorry hon, but I can only go so long without food, ya' know."

Bri heard Patricia mutter "Get a room" from behind them. She glanced around to see the other redhead smiling at her, showing that she didn't really mean it.

"We already have one." Bri said, smiling back.

By then, then they'd reached the dining room. The other three members of the house were still sitting there, finishing off their breakfast. Bri sat in her usual place next to Jerome, and George sat on the other side of her.

Since their was only one plate left, they decided to share telepathically telling each other that it would help their "we're in love" act even more. Now, it was time for the play to _officially _begin.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Bri and George were finishing off what was left of the waffles. Or, at first it seemed like they were going to. Then they started spraying each other with the canned whip cream, and then licking it off of one another.

It was all making Jerome very sick. And, seriously, who could blame him? Seeing the girl he loved playing with the man _she _was in love with?

He'd almost lost his cool when George leaned over to lick the whip cream off of Bri's cheek-just a _bit _too close to the lips for his taste.

"Could you save some for the rest of us?" Jerome forced a smile onto his face. He was glad that he hadn't eaten all of his waffles yet, and that they didn't have any whip cream on them.

Bri-who had the bottle at the moment-glanced behind her shoulder at him, surprised. There were dabs of whip cream all over her face and Jerome was half tempted to lick one of them off himself, to show George who she _really _belonged to. But, of course, he just barely managed to restrain himself.

"Oh!" she laughed, turning to face him fully. "I'm sorry! Here!" she sprayed his waffles with a considerable amount of whip cream, before turning back to George.

Jerome shot a pleading look at Mara and Nina who also had waffles with no whip cream on their plates. The two girls sighed before asking Bri for some, as well. By the time they were done the can was thankfully, gone.

Bri sat back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "So, what do we have planned for today?"

"Trudy asked us to go out shopping for an air mattress." Mick said. "For your friend James who's coming on Sunday."

"Oh, right!" Bri giggled. "Great, we'll do that! Then, maybe tonight we could start a fire and watch _A Christmas Story."_

"Oh, wait, Bri." George laughed. "Jaimie will kill us if we watch it without him. It's his favorite Christmas movie."

"You're right." Bri thought for a second. "Then how about _A Muppet's Christmas Carol? _Everyone up for that?"

Jerome wasn't. It wasn't at the top of his list to watch Bri and George snuggle during a movie, but it sure as hell beat listening to them get it on above him. For a second he let his mind wander and imagined him and Bri snuggling up to watch a Christmas movie, but was brought back when he realized that everyone was staring at him.

"Uh, yeah, sure. That's cool." he said, remembering that he hadn't given an answer.

"Oh, great!" Bri squealed clapping her hands. "This'll be wonderful!"


	15. Chapter 15

Bri finished fishing out her make-up from her purse a half hour later. George was in the shower, so Bri was getting ready so she could help her when she was done. It was harder than one might think, making the red head look like a boy. I mean, it wasn't as if she didn't have a figure. Actually, she had a pretty good one, which just made it all the more harder to cover it up.

Her shirt was thrown over the full length mirror-she'd taken to wearing an undershirt with everything due to her obsession with anime. At present, she was trying to do her hair like Shampoo's from Ranma-she had put a dvd in and paused it on a good photo of her-but she just couldn't get the left bun to stay. Not to mention, her hair wasn't waist length, which made it hard to get the two ponytails to hang over her shoulders perfectly.

She was brought out of her reverie from a knock on her bedroom door. Bri groaned-she couldn't go open it, not while she was so close to getting it right.

"Come in!" she cried, picking up the hair spray.

The door opened to reveal Jerome. "Can we talk?" he asked.

Bri shook the can, and started to spray the bun furiously "Sure."

Jerome coughed a few times-probably due to the spray-as he made his way over to her bed. Bri stopped, mostly for him, but also because she was done.

"I have something I gotta tell you." Jerome muttered.

Bri rolled her eyes. "Obviously, otherwise you wouldn't want to talk." she put the last two rubber bands in, before reaching for her black eyeliner.

"Uh, yeah. I guess you're right." Jerome bit his lip, and looked away.

Bri paused, and turned around to look at him. "Well, aren't you going to say it?" she asked.

Jerome jumped, then nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I am." he licked his lips before saying: "Could you turn around? This isn't going to be easy."

Raising an eyebrow, Bri complied. But she still watched his reflection in the mirror as she went back to putting her eyeliner on.

"You and George have known each other for a while, right?"

Bri nodded, "Since Pre-K."

"And the two of you are in love, right?"

Bri had to fight the urge to turn around. "Yes. Now, would you please get to the point?" she sighed, quickly growing impatient.

Jerome jumped, again. "Sorry. Um, well," he started to scratch the back of his head. "What I was trying to say is…" he looked down at his feet, seeming very focused on something on the floor.

"What I'm trying to say is… I think I'm in love with you."

Bri froze.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome looked up at the sound of something dropping. Bri was staring into the mirror, eyes wide and seemingly frozen. She'd dropped her makeup pen-or whatever you call it-and that's what he'd heard.

After a few seconds she whirled around to face him. Her chest was heaving, and she was holding onto the mirror for support. "You're kidding." she breathed.

Jerome didn't know what to say, so he just kept looking at her-trying to communicate with his eyes.

Bri slowly made her way towards him. She stumbled a lot, as if she were drunk, and looked almost as if she were.

"Please tell me you're joking." she gasped, her fist brought up to her chest. "_Please."_

She collapsed onto the bed next to him, when he looked away. "Ohmigod." she exhaled.

Jerome looked over at her-and realized almost instantly it was a mistake. Despite the fact that she was freaking out, she still looked damn well irresistible.

Before he even realized what was happening, Jerome was pushing her down onto the bed. He crawled over her, and pressed his lips against hers.

It obviously took a second for Bri to realize what was going on, but once she did, she started fighting back. But, Jerome was stronger, so she went for another plan. She started to wiggle, and eventually slid out from under him.

She ran towards the door, but he'd locked it when he came in. She was jiggling the handle, as Jerome got up, off the bed. He was high off the kiss, and not thinking straight. If he had, he'd open the door himself, and leave, but instead, he ran over to her, and pried her fingers off the handle.

He twirled her around, pinning her hands above her head-couldn't have her escaping again-and began to kiss her more. For a while Bri didn't fight back-Jerome could tell she was just trying to calm herself so that she could think of a better way to escape. And sure enough, a few seconds later, he felt her foot shimmying up the inside of his left leg.

Jerome knew what she was going for, and as soon as she found her target, she brought her leg back. But he moved back and let go of her before she had time to knee him.

She whirled around, and flung open the door, glaring at him. Her eyes were dark, her lips were swollen, and one of her buns had come undone.

"Get out." she hissed.

Jerome complied, she slammed the door behind him, once he was out. A few seconds later, he heard sliding up against it. He could imagine her leaning against it, eyes distant.

He started down the hallway to get dressed.

{Bri's p.o.v}

Bri pulled her knees up to her chin and began to cry.


	16. Chapter 16

It was weird, seeing George come back into the room twenty minutes later, all smiles. Bri had almost forgotten that those things even exsisted. Hell, she'd forgotten that there was an entire _world _out there, besides what had happened between her and Jerome.

"What's wrong?" George asked, after taking a look at Bri.

Bri shook her head. She'd fixed her hair after she'd kicked Jerome out, but her eyes were still red and puffy from all the crying she'd been doing. "It's none of your buisness."

George glared at her for a second, before bitch slapping her across the face. "I'm your best friend, Bri! Everything you do is my business!"

Bri glared up at her best friend, rubbing her now sore cheek. "George, trust me when I say that you don't wanna know."

"Wanna bet?" George smirked.

Bri sighed, and looked away. "Jerome... kissed me while you were gone."

There was a moment of silence, before George exploded with a "_What?" _Bri couldn't tell if it was from anger or excitement. But, either way, it couldn't be good.

"Yeah," she breathed, trying not to look at her best friend in the eye. "I was getting ready when he came barging in. He told me... some stuff, and then just out of the blue pounces on me and kissed me." she didn't know whether or not to tell George that Jerome had pronounced his love for her-she could hardly believe it, herself.

"What did he tell you?" George glared at her, as she sat down on the bed.

Bri bit her lip, and turned back to the mirror, absentmindedly fixing one of her already perfect buns. "He told me that he... loved me." the last part was hardly above a whisper, but... damn George and her Vulcan hearing!-she heard it.

"What?" she screeched, yet again, jumping up. "You're kidding!"

Bri shook her head, "I wish I were."

George growled, and started for the door. "I'm going to kill him-how dare he hit on my woman!"

Smirking, Bri raised a brow at the redhead. "Your woman? Oh, no no no no no! We agreed when we started this that you would not consider me as 'your woman'. I'm still belong to myself. Besides," she added "What would they think of you barging in there in the state you're in?"

George glanced down at the towel she had wrapped around herself. She laughed, nervously, and rubbed the back of her head. "Huh, guess you're right." she moved over to the closet. "I'll change, first. And _then _I'll kill him."

{Jerome's p.o.v}

"You're kidding!" Alfie yelled, shaking Jerome by the collar of his shirt. "Jerome, you're such an _idiot! _Why'd you do that?"

Jerome glanced down at his feet. "Because, I thought that maybe she might... like me back."

"Seriously? Even though she has a boyfriend?"

"Well, it's happened before!"

"Yeah, in the movies!" Alfie threw his hands up in the air, as he paced back and forth between their beds. "Gah! I can't believe you did that! And, the day after her boyfriend arrives to make it worse!"

"What I did wasn't that bad." Jerome mumbled, looking away.

"Not that bad?" Alfie cried, "Jerome, the only thing worse you could've done was _rape _her right infront of him!"

"She'd probably like it, too." Jerome glared over at the doll that was still pinned up to the dart board. "I didn't hear much last night after I put the plugs in, but I can assure you, it probably was horrible."

"Actually," Alfie mused, "It wasn't much different from what was going on _before _you put the earplugs in. Just a bunch of banging, and moaning, and Bri going 'Oh, Ge-'"

"I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT!" Jerome cried, putting his hands over his hears.

Alfie glared at him for a second, before turning on his heel, and starting for the door. "Where are you going?" Jerome asked.

"To fix this!" Alfie cried. "Because apparently every time you try, you just make things worse!"

Jerome just sat there as he watched his friend leave the room.

{Bri's p.o.v}

George was still in her towel, trying to figure out which sweatshirt would go better with her ripped jeans, when the door burst open. Bri didn't think too much of it, since the only people who wouldn't knock were Amber, Nina, Patricia, and Mara-and they all knew about the prank.

But, then she heard a gasp-one that sounded quite male. She whipped her head around, to see Alfie staring at George, his mouth sagging open.

Bri screeched, and jumped inbetween the two, trying to hide her best friend. "Don't you knock?" she cried.

Alfie didn't answer, instead, he just pointed a finger at George. "H-He's a..."

George turned around, eyes wide. "N-No!" she cried in a totally fake deep voice. "I'm guy with awesome legs!"

"What kind of dude shaves?" Alfie cried, glancing at her clearly hairless limbs.

"I do! Bri likes clean shaven legs!"

"Well, then, what about those?" he pointed towards George's breasts.

"What, you never heard of man boobs?"

Alfie sighed, before turning to Bri, glaring. "What's going on, Bri?" he growled, advancing a step on them.

Bri bit her lip, glancing between the two. The jig was up, she knew, but damn it she hated having to admit that she'd lost. "Please don't tell Jerome!" she begged. "This wasn't how it was supposed to turn out!"

"How _what _wasn't supposed to turn out?" Alfie cried, then gasped, falling back a step and pointing a finger at _her, _this time. "Ohmigod! You're a lesbian!"

"What? No!"

"Then how do you explain all this?"

"We were playing a prank on you and Jerome. We hadn't planned it out, but when you guys just started to assume that George was a guy, we just _had _to do it." she smirked. "And don't tell me that you guys didn't deserve it."

"Well, what about all those sex noises we heard last night?"

"George moves alot in her sleep-and by alot, I mean _alot. _She moves so much that the bed bounces around and I can't sleep. Plus, it hurts my back." Bri touched her abck, which was still sore, and winced.

"Does everyone else know about this?"

Bri nodded, then shrugged. "We needed back up to help with you guys not finding out." then she rolled her eyes. "Though it doesn't seem as if they helped much, now that you know."

"Yes," George sighed, shaking her head, "But, now you do know, which only leaves us with three options."

Alfie gulped. "Which are...?"

"One," George held up one finger "You promise not to tell Jerome. Two, we enduse amnsesia on you. Or, three," she smiled evilly as she held up yet another finger. "We kill you."

"What?" Alfie cried, falling back _another _step. "You're joking!"

"Oh, I never joke, Alfie." George smirked "You wouldn't be the first person that I... silenced."

"Okay!" Bri cried, jumping infront of her friend. "There's no need to kill him! I know you would-but still!"

George sighed, and turned away. "Fine." she sighed, before dropping her towel.

Alfie's eyes grew wide, as Bri gasped, and pushed the Brit out into the hallway hopefully before he could see too much. Damn, couldn't George be even the _tiniest _bit self consious?

"W-Why'd she do that?" Alfie cried, once they were safely out of the room.

Bri sighed, and shook her head. "George doesn't do self consiousness. But, seriously, please don't tell Jerome. We don't like accpeting defeat, and I still need to get him back for that... incident." she growled the word, remembering the time when he'd pretended to have drowned.

"Which one?" Alfie smirked.

"All of them!"

"Okay," Alfie sighed, "I guess I'll keep it a secret for a little while, but I hope you know what you're doing."

Bri glared at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Alfie shrugged, and started down the hallway. "I dunno. You're so smart, figure it out for yourself."

"I hate you, ya' know that?"

"Who doesn't?"

Bri let out a loud scream, before storming back into her bedroom.


	17. Chapter 17

"Can we hurry it up, people!" Bri screeched, honking her horn at the cars in front of her. They were on their way to the store-and due to the fact that Trudy couldn't come along, she got to drive again.

She knew that everyone was a bit skeptical on getting in the same car as her while she was behind the wheel, but, hey! It's not like she was going to get into an accident!

"Bri!" George cried, "It's a red light! They can't exactly hurry it up, if it's illigal to move!"

Bri turned to glare at her firey haired best friend before grumbling and looking back ahead. George was the only one who had offered to sit in front with her. Apparently, everyone else thought that she was crazy and would get them all killed. Heh, well, she'll show them.

"Pooey." Bri said, after a few minutes. "Oh, so you guys finally decided to go, huh?" she yelled, shaking her fist, as the cars began to inch forward.

George sighed, and turned towaards the window. "You're your father's daughter, all right."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bri cried, glaring over at her best friend.

"It's supposed to mean that you should keep your eyes on the road!" George screeched, putting both hands on the dashboard.

Bri turned back to the front, to see that she had accidentally gone into the wrong lane, and were now being approached by a truck coming down the other way. Sighing, she swerved the car back in to the right lane, not a moment too soon.

Fabian cleared his throat from behind her. "Um, maybe we should travel on foot from here-"

"I can do this!" Bri screamed. Dammit, they almost get run over by a truck, and all of a sudden, they didn't trust her? What kind of friends were they?

"She's crazy." she saw Alfie whisper to Jerome in the rearview mirror. "She's gonna kill us all!"

"Shut up!" Bri yelled, "Just stay quiet and we'll get there in one piece!"

That got them all to shut up-thankfully. And a few minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot of the store with all their limbs still intact. Surprisingly, Bri was the only one who wasn't surprised by that fact. Jeez, couldn't her friends trust her every once in a while?

"That was the scariest ride of my life!" Amber sobbed, leaning into Nina, who hugged her, comfortingly.

Bri rolled her eyes, before storming on ahead. "Why'd you guys come, then, anyway? All we need is an air mattress, we don't need all twenty billion of us here just for that!"

Mick opened his mouth-but then, stopped, and turned to Fabian. "Why _did _we come?"

Fabian shrugged."It was Jerome's idea."

At the mention of Jerome's name, Bri went rigid. The memories of earlier came flooding back, causing tears to well up in her eyes. She ducked her head down so that her bangs were covering her face, and clenched her hands into fists.

"Everyone meet back here in a half hour." she growled, trying to keep her voice from cracking. "I don't care what you do-or what you buy but just be back in the car at 12:30. Got that?"

She could tell that everyone was a bit worried about her. But, they all mumbled that they got it, and began to move towards the enterance. Jerome, too, she was glad to see. George was the only one who stayed back. She placed a hand on Bri's shoulder and smiled comfortingly.

"Come on," she said softly. "Let's go see what anime they have, here."

Bri shook her head, before smiling up at her red haired best friend. "Perfect!" she purred, "I've been meaning to find some S.A and Skip Beat dvds."

George let out a whopping laugh. "Good luck with that."

{Jeromes p.o.v}

Jerome and Alfie were browsing the toy isle-they were looking for some more dart boards to hang up in their room.

"How'd your talk with Bri go?" Jerome asked, he hadn't gotten the chance, since right when Alfie returned, Mara had yelled that it was time to go.

Alfie smirked, "Goood." the word came out as a purr.

Jerome turned to glare at his best friend, but decided not to say anything. Alfie wouldn't have done anything to upset him-especially when it came to Bri.

"Well, what'd she say?" he asked, pushing it farther. From the looks of things, Bri hadn't forgiven him, yet. But, maybe he was reading too much into her actions.

Alfie laughed nervously, and scrached the back of his head, "Well, we didn't exactly get to talking about you."

Jerome raised his eyebrows at that. "Oh? And what, pray tell, exactly _were _you talking about the entire time you were up there?"

Alfie blushed, then looked away, and mumbling something that sounded like, "Damn," under his breath. "Well..." he began after a few minutes. "I kinda... walkedinonherchanging."

The world seemed to stop at those words. It took Jerome a second before he lashed out, and grabbed Alfie by the shoulders.

"What?" he cried, shaking his best friend.

Alfie gulped before shaking his head. "She was wrapped in a towel-that's all I saw! I swear!"

Jerome sighed, and let go of his best friend. "Fine," he grumbled, putting a hand to his head, and brushing his hair out of his eyes. "If you swear that's all you saw."

"Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye."

{Bri's p.o.v}

Bri's mood had made a 180 degree turn. She just couldn't help it-being surrounded by so much anime put her in a good mood. She hadn't seen so in one place before! Special A. Skip Beat. Inuyasha. Ultra Maniac. Ayase no Ceres. Ouran High School Host Club. Full Metal Alchemist-Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, as well. It was as if she died and went to anime heaven!

She squeeled, as she filled her basket up with more and more dvds. Due to the fact that her father sent her fifty bucks a week, and she hadn't shopped at all since arriving here, she had alot of money to spend.

"I could live here!" she cried, lunging at the last Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumiya season 2 set they had.

George laughed, as she carried her own basket which wasn't as full due to the fact that she didn't have as much money. "What're you going to eat?"

"Anime..." Bri smiled, hugging a dvd of Onii-chan no koto Nanka Zenzen suki Janain Sakura ne (Translation at bottom) to her chest. "It'll quench my hunger."

Still laughing, George grabbed hold of Bri's arm. "Come on, we have to be there in ten minutes, and we still have to find the air mattress plus buy all this for you."

Bri sighed, before following her out of her heaven on earth. "Hey, George?" she asked, "How's James doing, anyway?"

George stopped for a second before walking again. "He's doing... good. But, Bri, I think there's something you should know." they were in a secluded part of the store, right where the air mattereses were. "James and I..." she bit her lip and looked away.

"Yes?" Bri asked, inching forward.

George sighed, and faced her, "James and I are going out."

* * *

**BeBe: Translation for Onii-chan no koto Nanka Zenzen suki Janain Sakura ne: I Don't Love My Brother At All!**


	18. Chapter 18

**BeBe: Sorry it's been a while since I've updated. I slammed my finger in my aunt's car door, so now it's a pain to type, and I've been having my friend, Rina do it for me. Give me a few weeks, and I should be updating much much more.**

* * *

_The smell of pancakes and cold pizza was what woke Bri up the day after the dance. She sat up, sniffing the air, trying to figure out who was cooking if she was still asleep. Her mom should be at work, and her father and brothers couldn't cook shit._

_Then, she remembered that she over at James's house, and had slept on the floor. Which explained her slightly sore back._

_Looking around, she saw that the rest of the girls were still asleep, but Nick and James were both gone. She sighed, before standing up and going to the kitchen._

Once she reached there, she saw the two boys making breakfast. The kitchen was a mess, but other than that, they seemed to be doing a fairly good job. Well, except for the whole cooking _part of the operation. The eggs and the toast were coming out just fine, but the pancake pan was a complete mess._

_She stifled a giggle, when Nick let out a quiet yelp as one of the pancakes flew onto the ceiling after he'd tried to flip it.,_

_"Need help?" she chuckled, after a few minutes._

_The boys turned to look at her, their faces were covered_ _in batter and egg and different other cooking ingredients._

"What're you doing up?" James hissed, "It's not even eight, yet!"

_Bri laughed as she moved over to James, and wiped some batter off his cheek and licking it off her finger. "Bad cooks in the kitchen always wake me up."_

_"We were trying to make you girls breakfast in bed." Nick explained, before gesturing at the mess around him. "As you can see, it didn't turn out to well."_

_"Ya' think?" Bri smirked, before going over to the oven. They had both burners set on high, sighing, she turned the one with the pancakes on it to medium low. "Don't turn the burners on to high, otherwise the outside of the pancakes will burn before the inside has fully cooked." then she examined the inside of the pan. Burnt on batter coated the entire bottom. "How much butter did you put in before pouring the batter in?" she turned to the boys._

_"None." Nick answered, a confused look on his face._

_Bri rolled her eyes, before turning back to the pan. "IF you don't put in any butter, the pancake will stick."_

_"Just like eggs?" James asked, from behind her._

_"Yes," Bri nodded, "Of course just like eggs." she poured a few spoonfuls of batter into the pan before turning back to the boys. "Nick, go take a shower and change out of those dirty clothes. James, you stay here and help me cook and clean up this mess. You'll shower and change when Nick is done."_

_Both the boys nodded, before heading off to do their jobs._

_(a half hour later)_

_All the girls were up, now. They were all eating in James's living room, laughing and talking. They were all going to spend an extra night there since his parents had called to inform him they would be staying an extra night, as well._

_"We should have a romance movie night, tonight!" Liz laughed, as she swallowed a bite of toast._

_Nick pretended to barf. "I had enough time getting to bed after the horror movies. Please don't inflict romance on me."_

_Jack glared up at her boyfriend for a second before smiling over at Liz. "I think that would be a great idea." she smiled. "What do you think, George?"_

_"I'm siding with the boys, on this one." George said, pointing to Nick and James. "Romance movies really aren't my thing."_

_Sighing, Jack turned to Danny who nodded. "Sounds like a fair exchange." she smiled._

_Then, they all turned to Bri, eyebrows raised, expectantly. "Well?" Liz asked, "You're the tie breaker, Bri. Should we have a romance night, tonight, or not?"_

_Bri thought about it for a moment, before smiling. "I think we should all go down to the rental store and each pick out a movie to watch. Then, we can watch all of them, tonight."_

_Everyone glanced at each other for a second before shrugging. "That sounds fine." Jack said._

_"Sure beats having to watch a whole bunch of crappy romance movies." Nick agreed._

_James smirked over at his child hood friend. "Well, what would you expect from her? That is why she got that scholarship to go to England, right?"_

_"Oh!" Danny exclaimed, turning to face her. "You got accepted?"_

_Bri smirked over at her curly haired friend. "Did you expect anything else?"_

_"I'm happy for you Bri…." Jack laughed, hitting Bri on the back._

_"I new you would." George smirked, "After all, you are the key…."_

(End Flashback)

Bri shot up, breathing hard. She was in her room in England, on her bed, with the dvds she'd bought at the store at her feet.

She put a hand to her head, as the dream continued to play. It was a memory from the day after the dance-she could almost smell the burnt pancakes.

The door opened, to reveal George, who had worry marks all over her face. "You okay?" she asked softly.

Bri nodded, before motioning for her friend to come in. "I'm sorry for before." she whispered, "You gave me some really great news, and I acted so…" she scoffed and shook her head. "I'm a terrible friend."

George shook her head, before entering. "No, not a terrible one. It was out of the blue-hell, I probably would've fainted, too."

"I can't believe I fainted." Bri snorted, "I've never fainted in my entire life!"

"We have a bigger problem here, though." George replied thoughtfully "What'll happen when James comes over and starts treating me like his girlfriend?"

Bri smirked, "Simple. We tell him the plan, and he'll be in on it in a second!"

George looked skeptical. "You sure?"

Bri nodded, "You may be James's girlfriend, but I've known him since we were in diapers."

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome was pacing the length of the room their room. It seemed as if he'd been doing that a lot since Bri had arrived.

They'd all been waiting for the couple to come out from the store. When, nearly a half hour late, George had walked out carrying an unconscious Bri in his arms. He'd been evasive of all questions, and then took Bri right up to their room.

"What do you think he did to her?" Jerome growled, trying not to imagine all the different scenarios in his head.

Alfie laughed, "Jerome, you can't seriously think he did anything to her. She probably just hit her head."

"Then why was he refusing to answer questions?" Jerome shot back. "Don't tell me that's not even the _tiniest bit _suspicious!"

Alfie shrugged. "He was obviously worried about her. She's his girlfriend, and hurt. He was just in a hurry to get her home, so he could help her." Jerome still didn't trust the redhead. Alfie sighed, "Fine. Here, I'll go ask, and then I'll come back with the answers."

{Bri's p.o.v}

{That night}

The words that George had said in her dream kept running through her head.

"You are the key."

"You are the key."

"You are the key."

"You are the key."

"You are the key."

"You are the key."

"You are the key."

"You are the key."

What was it that Bri had thought earlier? On her second day there, when she figured out about the Sibuna club? When she'd giggled about how George would blow a casket if she found out about it?,

She kept turning in her bed, unable to sleep as the endless thoughts ran through her head. She knew she should get some rest, since James would arrive the next day, and she had to be able to figure out how to tell him of the prank before he completely blew their cover.

Suddenly, an idea crossed her had.

Bri shot up in her bed, eyes wide.

"That's it!" she gasped, before hopping out of her bed and running out of the room.

She'd figured out what Brianna had meant.


	19. Chapter 19

Bri glared up at the top of the stairs that led to the attic. She _really _didn't want to be doing this in the middle of the night, but she didn't really think she had much of a choice. If she wanted to know if what she predicted was right, she'd have to do so now, while Victor was asleep. Plus, it'd be nice if they could figure this out before James arrived. It'd just be easier to deal with one trick, right now.

Carefully, she began to make her way up the stairs, trying to remember where every creaky spot was so she wouldn't wake anyone. She began to run through _Skip Beat _episodes in her head really fast to keep from panicking and running back to her room and safely next to George.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, she reached the top. Bri carefully put her pinky finger into the key slot to unlock the door when-

"What do you think you're doing?"

Bri nearly jumped out of her skin, shrieking slightly before realizing who it was.

"What do you want, Jerome?" she whispered, turning around to face him.

Jerome smirked slightly down at her, before shaking his head. "I was going to go get a glass of water when I heard your breathing. You're not very good at keeping quiet, are you?"

"Shut up." Bri grumbled, before turning around. "Just go back to bed and pretend this never happened."

"Why?"

"Because it has nothing to do with you." Bri glared over her shoulder at him, as she slid her pinky nail back into the lock. "You'll just get in the way."

The blonde brit raised a brow at that before his smirk grew wider. "What if you get caught?"

"I won't."

"But what if you do?"

"Then, it's _my _problem. Like I said, you have nothing to do with this." Seeing his smirk, Bri sighed. "You're going to come, no matter what I say, huh?"

"A knight in shining armor never lets his princess go into battle without him there to protect her."

Bri unlocked the door, before turning to glare at him, arms crossed. "Knight in shining armor?" she asked, hoping she didn't know what he was getting at. She _really _didn't need this from him, right now.

"But of course." Jerome took a deep bow before smiling up at her. "WWho else would I be?"

"The town fool." Bri muttered under her breath before sighing, and opening the door. "Fine, just no romantic metephors while we're doing this. I _do _have a _boyfriend, _remember."

"And where is he?" Jerome asked, as Bri began to search through the boxes. It seemed as if someone had moved them since the last time she was up here. Which just made her job all the more harder-especially since she had to get it done within the hour before everyone else woke up.

"Sleeping." Bri shook her head, as she moved a huge box, stumbling a bit. "I couldn't put him in any danger he doesn't need to be in."

"Some knight in shining armor." Jerome helped steady her, making Bri blush as their faces became just inches a part. Had he always looked that cute...?

Bri shook herself, mentally. Where'd that come from? This was _Jerome _we're talking about! Loud mouth, brash, Jerome! He wasn't cute, he was _annoying!_

"I don't like knights in shining armor." she said, indifferently, once she'd gotten herself back together. "I prefer knights in an expenisve school blazer."

"You mean like this?" Bri turned to face him, realizing that he was indeed, wearing a school blazer that couldn't be cheap.

Bri glared, before turning back to the boxes. "Why're you even wearing that? There's no school, today."

Suddenly, Jerome's lips were right next to her ears. "I think you're avoiding the question." he whispered, his breath sending tingles through her skin.

Bri tensed up, willing the goosebumps to go away. Her face heated up, and she couldn't get her mouth t o work. Dammit, why was he having this effect on her? What was this boy doing?

But, he was so close, she could smell his shampoo. It was sweet, not girlie sweet, but... sweet.

Bri gulped, as she tried to snap herself back. But, before she could, Jerome turned her around so that they were facing each other, now. He smiled lovingly down at her, before tilting her head up, and moving his down, slowly.

"Tell me when to stop." he whispered, just as their lips were about to touch.

He was being unfair, playing with her hormones. Bri tried to tell herself that. That had to be it. But, even so, why couldn't she get a hold of herself? Then, something caught her eye-a chest neatly shoved in a corner, nearly hidden.

Suddenly, all thoughts of Jerome disappeared. She easily stepped out of his trap and ran to the chest, barely hearing his groan from behind her.

She slid on her knees, before smiling down at it. Yep, this was it. The chest she'd found the diary in.

Bri opned the chest, before feeling through all the corners. In the left corner, she felt something that felt like a small box. She picked it up, surprised at how heavy it was and held it in the palm of her hand.

Bri smiled. She'd figured out the mystery.


	20. IMPORTANT!

**BeBe: Sorry, my brother thought it would be funny to erase my original chapter for this story, and now I'm too pissed to think clearly. Anyway, I realize it's been a while since I've updated, and it should be coming around within a week or so. Still, I know you're probably _yearning _for my awsome writing skills (Yes, I can make a joak even when pissed) so I'm going to update with a oneshot that I'm thinking about posting on Fictionpress. Read if you wish, and tell me what you think.**

* * *

Beatrice felt Roy clutch her hand as if it were his own personal lifeline. Her first reaction was to grab back, but she squeezed her eyes shut and used all her self control not to. They were almost adults, they didn't need each other, anymore.

That still didn't make leaving any easier. She was all he had, and the thought of leaving him made her physically sick-even if it was to achieve her life long dreams.

His mother died when he was a baby and his father was a drunk who barely gave his son the time of day. She was his security bllacket, the one he went to when he needed to get away. His safe place. His everything.

And she was leaving him. _Leaving him. _For her own selfish wants. She was his everything, and she was leaving. How in the world could she do such a thing?

Beatrice glanced over at him as the graduation speech started. His eyes were glazed as he stared straight ahead, obviously not paying attention to what was being said. For a second she wondered what was going through his head. Was he panicking? On the verge of tears?

Sensing her eyes on him, Roy turned to look at her. He smiled a seemingly conforting smile but Beatrice could see the message behind his eyes. "Don't leave me, Tris." was what he wanted to say.

Beatrice felt herself begin to tear up. The effect he had on her was unfair. Gulping, she turned back to the front as the first day of high school flashed through her head.

_Flashback:_

_Beatrice was sprawled across the floor in Roy's bedroom. Her red hair covered up most of their homework. Which, they should be doing, but she was too lazy to start._

_Roy was on his bed, kicking his bare feet just inches from Beatrice's face. She didn't flinch, though-she knew he wouldn't hurt her._

_"It's the twelth anniversery, huh." Beatrice didn't need to specify. Her and Roy knew each other well enough to know what the other was thinking of._

_"Yupp." Roy hardly ever said more than one word at a time on this day, so Beatrice was used to his rudeness._

_"Do you ever miss her?" she whispered, knowing it was a stupid question._

_"What do you think?" was his answer, which had obviously come out more harsh than he'd intended. Still, Beatrice felt hurt for a second, and it must've crossed her face, because than he sighed. "Yeah..." he murmured. "But, you make it easier."_

_Beatrice blinked, not knowing what to say. "What?" she asked._

_Roy smiled down at her, his green eyes shining. "I've always had you by my side, Triss. Even when my dad is never around, you are." he bit his lip, before blushing, and looking away. "It wouldn't feel right if you weren't here."_

_Laughing, slightly, Beatrice smiled, before getting up and plopping down on his lap. "Well, then I guess I'll just always have to be by you."_

_Roy's eyes grew wide, and he began to shake his head. "Triss, no. You don't have to stay with me, just because of that. I want you to do what you want." but she could tell it was a lie._

_Beatrice smiled, "Don't worry," she murmured, comfortingly. "I'll always be here, no matter what."_

_End Flashback_

And now she was breaking that promise. Her plane was leaving before graduation even ended, so she'd only have time to grab her diploma and rush out of there. She wouldn't even have time to do the awsome hat throw she'd always dreamed of doing. Sigh. As if leaving wasn't going to be hard enough.

It was their turn to stand up. They were at the front of the line, which made their time together all the more shorter. Roy continued to cling to her hand, and Beatrice started to do the same.

Then her name was called, and she slowly slipped her hand out of his tight grasp. Her palms were sweaty as she reached for the diploma, and she only hoped that her principal wouldn't notice. Still, she offered him a smile, before rushing off stange.

She glanced back to see him start across, his eyes rarely leaving hers. Taking in a huge breath, Beatrice turned and ran for the exit, not wanting him to see her cry. And not wanting to see his world shatter into a million pieces. All she could do was keep running. Keep running, and silently telling him to forget about her, because that was what would be best for him.

Because if he didn't, he would always feel as if the only thing he ever hand abandoned him-which it did. As if his entire world was bleak and meanlingliss.

But, she was doing what was best for him. Because if he didn't let go now, he never would.

And they were adults, now. They didn't need each other, anymore.

* * *

**BeBe: Sad, I know. Anyway, tell me what you think of it, and I promise to update soon. Oh, and if you want to read more of my stories, my fictionpress penname is AnimeLover1234. So check it out and review some of my stories! You're opinions are always held in great regard! And, once again, I promise to update, soon.**


	21. Chapter 21

**BeBe: Okay! I am back! Now, I don't know if you (for those of you who read my short story) noticed, but, I made it so that at the beginning Beatrice said that they were "Almost adults" and then at the end, she said they "Were adults." Didn't know if any of you caught that, but I thought it was pretty clever.  
Anyway, on with the story!**

* * *

Bri nearly skipped out of the attic, holding the box close to her chest. She was so excited that she'd found it, she could hardly keep it in. She felt like screaming at the top of her lungs. Announcing to the world that she had succeeded.

She could feel Jerome's gaze on the back of her head. He was smiling-she knew that, but she hardly cared. Yeah, she was that excited.

"So, what is it that you found?" he asked, still smiling.

Bri froze, before turning halfway around to face him. She couldn't tell him, it was a secret, that she wasn't supposed to let out. "It's none of your buisness." she glared.

Jerome chuckled. "Okay, fine. I see how it is."

"No," Bri sighed, "It's not that. It's just-Nina wanted me to keep this from all the boys. She said-she said that it was embarrassing if you guys were find out."

"So... George doesn't know, either?" Jerome's face seemed to darken at the name of Bri's friend.

"No." Bri glared at him, again. "And don't go glaring when he's mentioned, like that. He's never done anything to you."

"He stole you from me." Jerome mumbled.

"I was never yours!" Bri cried. "And, the two of us have been going out way before I even _met _you!"

Jerome blushed for a second before glancing away, looking dejected. Bri almost felt bad, but he'd been making her feel guilty ever since he'd told her he loved her, and she was done with it all. She couldn't deal with all the stress, right then.

"Besides." she bit her lip, and looked away. "Besides... besides you can't love me."

"And why not?" Jerome shot back.

"Because." Bri sighed, besides the obvious-she was Victor's grandchild, and might most likely be the reincarnation of some girl he tried to kill. "Because, I'm with George."

"Do you think that matters?" Jerome glared.

"It should!" Bri cried. "You shouldn't fall inlove with a girl who's already taken!"

"Well it's a bit too late for that, now, isn't it?" Jerome yelled back at her. It was a good thing they were still in the attic, or they would've woken the entire house. "Face it, Bri! I love you!"

"Well, you should stop!" tears were now cascading down her cheeks.

"And give me a good reason why that isn't that you're going out with George!" Jerome was yelling, but his eyes were pleading-_begging _for a reason not to love her. He didn't want to just as much as she didn't-she hoped.

_"Because I'm moving back to America!"_

(Jerome's p.o.v)

Bri gasped, throwing her hands over her mouth, and backing away from him, eyes wide. Jerome just continued to stare at her, dumbfounded by what she'd just said.

"What?" he gasped.

Sighing, Bri lowered her hands, and grabbed onto her right elbow. She looked so innocent in that pose that it took all his restraint not to grab her and hug her right then and there.

"I wasn't the one that pulled that prank." she whispered. "My friend Jack was, and I took the blame because I didn't want her to get expelled. Then she turned herself in, so I'm invited to come back after Christmas vacation."

She looked away for a second, eyes distant, before turning back. "I wasn't going to, at first. But, having all that fun with George made me realize just how much I miss them."

"When did you find this out?" Jerome asked, once he soaked all that in.

"George told me while we were out shopping." Bri sighed. "He misses me, and he wanted me to come back."

"So, you're leaving me?" Jerome whispered, feeling his voice crack and tears well up in his eyes. "Just... just like my parents?"

Bri looked up at him, confusion in her eyes. "What do you-I don't know what you're talking about."

"My parents abandoned me, here." Jerome glowered. "Just like you will."

"I'm sorry." Bri murmured, looking away. "I really am. I can't imagine having parents that would do that but-" she shook her head, solomnly. "-but, I really don't have much of a choice."

"Yes, you do." Jerome said, firmly, grabbing hold of her shoulders. "Bri, don't leave me."

"I have to, Jerome." she sighed. "I-My entire _family _is over there, Jerome. I have to go back."

"No, you-" Jerome sighed, this was getting him no where. "Please, at least think about it some more. Make the right choice." as he thought about her leaving, the anger in him began to build again, causing him to glare. Without thinking, he bent down and lightly brushed his lips against hers. "And realize I love you while you're at it."

And with that, he walked away. Leaving a shocked Bri behind him, her sobs and constant "I'm sorry"s drifting down the corridor.

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**BeBe: There's only about 5 or so more chapters left-plus an epilogue. It feels so weird being almost done with this story. Sigh. I feel like I've been writing it forever. Sigh... again. Anyway, review!**


	22. Chapter 22

"You're kidding!" Nina laughed, early that morning.

Bri smiled, and shook her head. She'd woken up the other Sibuna members before anyone else was awake, so she could tell them about finding the box. They didn't know about her going back to America, yet, but she was planning on announcing it at dinner, that night.

"I'm not kidding." she announced, proudly.

"This is great!" Fabian laughed, holding the box in the light so he could examine it better. "Now all we have to do is figure out what Brianna meant when she said that the key was inside Bri!"

"Um..." Bri smiled nervously, holding up a finger. "I already know what she meant..."

Patricia rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised." she said, with fake sarcasm, before smiling over at her. "Well, don't leave us in suspense. Tell us what your fabulas mind has figured out."

"Well," Bri smiled holding up her pinky finger. "It came to me last night when I was picking the lock to the attic. She said that the key was inside me, and by picking the attic lock, I was unlocking it. Like-using a key."

"And your nails come out of you." Alfie breathed, catching on. "Therefor, they had to be _in _you at some point."

"Precisly." Bri smiled.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Amber cried, lurching forward, her eyes shining with excitement. "Open it, Bri!"

Bri let out a loud laugh, before shaking her head. "Alright, fine. But, only because you said please." the last part was sarcastic and was said while she was giving Amber a half assed glare.

Fabian set the box down in front of her. Bri breathed in, deeply, before glancing around. This was it, after weeks of nonstop stress and worry, she was finally going to find out what it had all come down to.

Carefully, she began to push her nail through the lock. She went slowly, as if if she went to fast, whatever was inside, would shatter.

The lock was old, and very stubborn. Bri bit her lip as she continued to turn her pinky, hoping she wouldn't break the nail. Pain began to shoot up her finger as she continued to push it against its limitations, but she hardly noticed. Just a little more-she had to be almost there. Another inch, that's it. No lock could be that hard to open...

And finally, after nearly five minutes of struggling, Bri felt the click that signified that she had succeeded.

Smiling, she slowly began to pull her finger out. The nail was scratched and now had little chips in it, and her pinky was likely to be bruised in a couple of hours, but it would all be worth it. Finally, she would know what Brianna's big secret was-the one she had to die to protect.

Everyone gathered around her, as she opened the lid. Inside, there lay a giant Amethyst-the exact color of Bri's eyes. Slowly, as if in a trance, Bri reached in a picked it up. It was about the size of a golfball and fit perfectly in the palm of her hand.

"My God." she breathed, staring at it.

"That's gotta be worth alotta dough." Alfie whispered, behind her.

"More than any of us have ever seen in our lives." Nina agreed, before glancing down at Bri. "It rightfully belongs to you, what're you going to do with it?"

"By anime, I'll bet." Patricia smirked.

Bri shook her head. "Brianna went through a lot of trouble to protect this. If I were to sell it, it'd be like smacking her in the face." she clutched the diamond close to her chest. "I'm going to keep it and bring it back to America, with me." she murmured, to herself.

"E-Excuse me?" Amber cried, "What did you just say?"

Bri's eyes shot open, as she realized what she'd said. But, before she could answer, the door burst open to reveal a very frantic George.

"He's here, Bri!" she cried, running into the room. "James arrived early!"

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome could hear Bri and George pounding down the stairs. The redhead devil had forbidden anyone to get the door, saying Bri would be upset if they did. That was the only thing that kept him from doing so, then.

The blonde flew to the door, and flung it open. On the other side, stood a boy with long blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and bright green eyes.

"Jamie!" Bri cried, tears in her eyes, as she flung herself at him.

Jerome felt his eye twitch, as he watched the scene. He knew he shouldn't be jealous about the newcomer, since Bri was already going out with George, but he still didn't like the sight of it.

"Oomph! Hi Faye!" James laughed, as he wrapped his arms around Bri. "Long time, no see! How's those birth control pills going out for y-ouch!"

"SHUT UP!" Bri cried, the happy tears suddenly gone. "YOU KNOW THAT JUST BECAUSE YOUR DAD IS MY DOCTER IT DOESN'T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT MY MEDICAL PROBLEMS OR GO YELLING THEM OUT! OR DID YOU FORGET IN MY ABSENSE? DO I HAVE TO TEACH YOU _ANOTHER _LESSON?"

James chuckled, before slapping a hand over the rampaging blonde's mouth. "Calm down, Faye. I was just kidding."

Bri glared up at him for a second, her face was red and eyes practicaly had flames in them. She was obviously silently fuming as she tried to figure out a good comeback.

But, before she could, the tears were back. "I MISSED YOU!" she cried, throwing her arms around him again. "HOW'S JACK? AND DANNY? AND NICK?"

Jerome's eye twitched, again. Damn, did this girl have _any _friends that weren't guys?

James, on the other hand, began to laugh. "They're all fine-and they send their 'Merry Christmases' along with me. Well-except for Nick. He says 'Globstrick Clorbag.' whatever that means."

Bri rolled her eyes. "I think it means he's an idiot." then her eyes grew wide. "Oh, James, I know I haven't introduced you, yet, but I have to tell you something, real quick." she pulled him out the front door, indicating that she meant in private.

Now, Jerome was the only one there, at the moment, so there was no one stopping him from putting his ear up against the door.

"Now, George told me about you two." Bri was saying to the blonde. "About how the two of you are... ya' know, dating." Jerome's eyes widened.

"OH." there was a slight smirk to James's voice. "And how did you take it?"

There came a growl from Bri. "I fainted. But, anyway, that's not the point. I wanted to tell you that the guy who was in there right now, his name's Jerome. He's really annoying, and loves to play pranks on me."

"Just like me. I think we'd get along really well."

"No-well, yes-I mean... JUST LISTEN! So, as payback me and George... the two of us... she and I... we're..." Bri sounded really nervous. "We're pretending to go out."

Jerome let out a loud gasp.


	23. Chapter 23

James stared down at her, mouth agape. "What?" he asked.

Bri shook her head, "Nevermind. George will tell you, later." she smirked up at him. "Besides, I know you've been dying to see her."

"I saw her last week." James smiled. "I haven't seen you since summer."

"She's your _girlfriend." _Bri shot back. "I know you want to see her. Don't even try to lie to me."

"BRI!" Bri turned to see Alfie sticking his head out the door. "Bri," he gasped, "I think you should see this."

Bri turned back to James, and smiled sadly. "Besides, I apparently have to do something. Sorry, this isn't the best way to do introductions, but just wait, I'll be down in a few." she pulled him inside, before shoving him at Jerome. "There's your room mate, Jerome, go help him unpack."

James and Jerome stared at her in confusion as she stormed up the stairs after Alfie. Truth be told, she was just as confused. Hadn't her mystery already been solved? She didn't want to start another one that she couldn't finish since she was going back to America with her friends!

"What is it?" she sighed, as she entered Nina and Amber's room. "I hope you know you just interrupted my conversation with my best guy friend whom I haven't seen in months."

"We do." Nina said in a hurried whisper. "But, this is important. Here." she handed Bri a piece of paper.

Bri looked down at it, before raising an eyebrow up at the only other American in the room. "What is this?" she asked.

"It's the paper that fell out of the diary." Nina whispered. "Amber and I just realized that we hadn't read it, yet. And, we think you should see it."

Bri raised an eyebrow, before unfolding the piece of paper. At the top it said:

Canterella

by Brianna Lenore Jenson

"We think it's a story based off of what happened to her." Nina whispered. "Go on, read it."

(The story)

Annabell Hart was a beautiful girl. She had golden locks that cascaded down her back and bangs that hallowed her face. Her eyes were the exact color that leprechauns dreamed of and her skin was a fair as Snow White's.

Yes, Annabell was a _beautiful _girl-she just didn't see it.

She was like an angel, floating through the halls of school. Beautiful, and able to get along with _everyone, _that's how people thought of her. She could be considerate and caring, and a complete bitch when she was with the right people. She was a bookworm, but definitely knew how to have fun.

"Tinkle!"

Annabell turned around to the sound of her best friend's voice. "Hey, Mil!" she laughed, waving at the red haired girl.

Millie stopped right in front of her, breathing hard. "Wyatt… says he… wants… to talk… to… you." she panted, bending over.

Annabell raised an eyebrow-Wyatt was her's and Millie's best guy friend. It seemed rather odd that he'd only want to talk to her.

"Just me?" she asked.

Millie nodded, as she straightened back up. "Yes." she said, "Just you." she gave Millie a harsh glare "You two better not be having an affair."

Annabell let out a huge laugh. Millie had had a crush on Wyatt for a while, now, and always got insanely jealous when he was with another girl.

"Hardly." Annabell snorted, shouldering her bag. "He's like my _brotheer!-_only, less gross."

Millie chuckled, as the two of them made their way to the Newsroom-that's where Wyatt always was after school. He was a part of the News committee, even though he couldn't care less about writing. Annabell and Millie forced him to join so they'd have a place to hide during class.

"That's good." Millie sighed, sounding relieved. "He's always staring at you-I thought for sure that the two of you were together."

Annnabell shook her head "Nope, not yet. Still just friends." she smiled, comfortingly. "Don't worry, Mill. I'd never steal him from you."

"Don't say that!" Millie gasped. Her head flung back, causing a few strands of her bright red hair to stick to her lips. She spit them out-as Annabell smirked, highly amused at her best friend's sillyness-before continuing. "If the two of you fall in love, I'll support you till the end!"

Annabell smiled, she was so glad to have a best friend who cared _that much _about her. Friends like that were really hard to come by those days.

"Thank you." she whispered, before slugging the red head's arm. "But like is aid, you don't have to worry about that." then she blanched. "I can't believe that Dr. Harp gave homework, today."

Millie rolled her eyes. "You're surprised? She'd _exactly _the kind of teacher to assign homework on Halloween."

"Yeah," Annabell snorted-something _only _Millie and Wyatt _ever _saw her do. "Doesn't she realize that just because _she _doesn't have a life-that doesn't mean _we _don't?"

The three of them were going to take Millie's little brother and Annabell's little sister out trick-or-treating. Afterwards, they were going to go to a Haunted House, that-according to Annabell's older brother, Luke-was freakin' scary.

"I don't think _any _teachers realize that." Millie giggled.

By that time, they'd reached the Newsroom. It was in a less populated and more run down hallway. The door was splintery, and heavy and creaked when you opened it. There was also cobwebs everywhere and that particular hallway had no electricity, causing it to be cold and dark.

The perfect place to be alone.

"WYATT!" Annabell yelled, pounding her gloved-she wasn't too fond of splinters-fists on the door. "WYATT, IT'S US! OPEN UP!"

"I'M GETTING COLD, WOYATT!" Millie yelled, threateningly "LET US IN!"

The door opened right as Annabell's fist was swinging forward-causing her to punch the person who'd opened it right in the face.

"Gah!" Wyatt cried, jumping back and holding his nose where Annabell could see blood dripping out. "Jeez, Lee!" he yelled. Lee was his nickname for Annabell ever since they'd read "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe. "What the hell was that for?"

Annabell blushed, before smiling, guiltily. "Sorry," she chuckled. "You caught me off guard."

"Remind me not to do that, again." he grumbled, wiping the blood away from his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

Wyatt Sharp had been Annabell's best guy friend ever since he'd fallen on top of her in the third grade. He had shoulder length black hair with bangs that hung in his bright red eyes. If Annabell looked like an angel, than he looked like the devil. But, looks were deceiving, of course. He was the nicest guy in the entire school.

"it's your own fault." Millie shrugged, "You should stop locking the door."

"I didn't!" Wyatt cried, before sighing, "Nevermind, let's go. Jenson and Alex are probably growing impatient."

"But didn't you want to talk to Tinkle?" Millie asked.

Wyatt rolled his eyes. "Like I wanna be alone with her, _now!" _he scoffed. "She just tried to kill me!"

"Oh, stop being such a baby." Annabell giggled, "That couldn't have hut-I'm too cute and sweet to even harm a _fly."_

"'And this maiden she lived with no other thought  
Than to love and be loved by me.'" Wyatt quoted, having memorized the poem back in Junior High.

Annabell closed her eyes and smiled as the first stanza whispered in her head-

"it was many and many a year ago,  
In a kingdom by the sea,  
That a maiden lived whom you may know  
By the name of Annabel Lee:-  
And this maiden she lived with no other thought  
Than to love and be loved by me."

-it was her favorite part of the poem. It was soft and melodious and happy. The only happy part of the poem. Annabell often found herself quoting different lines from the poem when she was reminded of it by her everyday life.

"I was a child and she was a child,  
In this kingdom by the sea:  
But we loved with a love that was more than love -  
I and my Annabel Lee;  
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven  
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,  
In this kingdom by the sea,  
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling  
My beautiful Annabel Lee;  
So that her high-born kinsmen came  
And bore her away from me,  
To shut her up in a sepulchre  
In this kingdom by the sea."

"See ya!" Annabell cheered as her and Wyatt separated from Millie. The red head lived in the opposite direction as them, so she departed from the group about halfway home.

"That wasn't _nearly _as scary as I thought it was gonna be." Wyatt groaned. "I was _so _disappointed."

"Stop acting so tough." Annabell chuckled. "You were screaming like a little girl."

"I was trying to keep the two of you from feeling bad." he snorted, before his eyes grew wide. "Oh, by the way, I got something for you."

He pulled a tube of some suspicious looking liquid out of his backpack. Annabell scrunched up her nose as she stared at it.

"What's that?" she asked, taking it from him.

"It's home made juice." Wyatt smiled. "You look thirsty, I figure you may want some."

It was true. Annabell was _parched, _and now that she thought about it, the liquid looked _really _good at the moment. Plus, it was Wyatt who was giving it to her. He wouldn't give her anything that she wouldn't drink.

"Thank you." she smiled, before downing the juice. It tasted odd, and left an even odder after taste. She scrunched up her nose, again, turning Wyatt. "Wyatt, what was that?"

Her eyes began to droop as Wyatt smiled evilly over at her. She suddenly felt weary, as if she hadn't slept in weeks. Blinking, she swayed on her feet, as she tried to stay awake.

But, after a few minutes, it became too much, and she fainted.

"The angels, not half so happy in heaven,  
Went envying her and me -  
Yes! that was the reason  
In this kingdom by the sea  
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,  
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee."

Annabell slowly woke up, her eyes feeling heavy. She blinked away from the dim light that seemed way too bright, anyway. After a while, she realized that she was laying on the couch in the Newsroom.

"Wha-oh yeah…." she murmured. "I fainted, and Wyatt must've been too weak to carry me all the way home."

"Not quite." Annabell turned to see Wyatt smirking evilly at her. Moving was hard, so even though she was slightly scared, she couldn't get up. "I brought you here for a different reason."

Annabell's eyes grew wide-everyone may have thought she was an angel, but she was no idiot. "Wyatt-don't, please don't tell me you're-"

Wyatt tapped the wall, smiling evilly. "It's nine o'clock at night. So, hardly anyone's here, and you said yourself anyone, this hallway is rundown and dark and-"

"-the perfect place to be alone." Annabell finished, tears welling in her eyes. "Wyatt, please don't-"

"Begging will get you no where, Lee." Wyatt whispered, climbing on top of her. "Neither will fighting back. You're still weak from the Cantarella."

Annabell's eyes widened as the familiar name reached her ears. "No…." she whispered, tears streaming down her face as Wyatt began to suck at her neck.

He left two hours later, leaving Annabell laying on the bed, broken, torn, and bloody. To be healed-

-Nevermore.

(End Story)

Bri looked up from the story, breathing hard. "So," she gasped, "Wyatt is supposed to be… Victor?"

Patricia nodded, "We think so. Though, there is something I don't get-how come for most of the story she's reciting Annabel Lee, but then just suddenly switches to The Raven? Plus, what's with Annabel Lee? There's no Brianna in any of Poe's writings."

"Yeah, but there's a Lenore." Bri whispered, gazing at Brianna's little name. "But that's not the point. The point is is that I'm not just Brianna's reincarnation-I'm also her great granddaughter." then she shook her head "Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. Victor is my grandfather, yet I know my grandmother."

Fabian handed her an old newspaper. "Look at this." he sighed. "It talks about a man who went and raped his daughter when he saw her for the first time and got her pregnant-she ran away to America shortly after."

Bri gasped, and flung herself up. This was all just too wrong! No way! Victor had gotten her great-grandmother and grandmother _both _pregnant? But… no! No! She couldn't stay in Europe a second longer! She had to get out, _now!_

Then, she sighed. James just got there, it would be unfair to ask him to leave so soon.

But she couldn't….

A whirl of emotions was coursing through Bri's veins. She shot out the door, in search of the comfort of her two childhood friends.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome was at the foot of the stairs when Bri collided into him. He glanced down at her to see that she was crying. Bri stared up at him through tear stained eyes for a second before flinging her arms around him and sobbing into his shoulder.

"Bri…?" he whispered, "What's wrong?"

"Hold me." she cried. "Just-just hold me."

* * *

**BeBe: Only one more chapter left and the epilogue! Can't wait to see how it ends? I'll bet you can't! I'll update sometime this weekend! Yeah, I know it was a fast chapter, but it was supposed to really just focus on the story, and how it affects Bri.**


	24. Chapter 24

**IMPORTANT!**

**BeBe: If you wanna know what that was about, read the note at the bottom.**

* * *

"You don't have to go, you know."

Bri looked up to see George and James standing in her thresh hold. A week had passed since James arrived, and also the day of their departure. Their plane was going to leave in an hour and Bri was just finishing up packing.

She turned away from her two friends. "Yes, I do."

James sighed, before walking around where she was facing and kneeling down in front of her. His green eyes were filled with worry, and slight pleading. No matter what he was about to say, he really wanted her to stay.

"Faye, no you don't." he said, shaking his head. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

That was when Bri realized it for the first time. That, even though it was so tiny that James probably didn't even notice it, himself, at one point, he'd had just the tiniest crush on her. Now that she thought back on it, it had been so _obvious. _How the hell had she not noticed?

"I want to go." she said, making her voice firm. "I _have _to go. I can't stay in Britain a second longer!"

George looking confused for a second. "I thought you'd changed her mind on the British."

Bri nodded, "I have, that's not the reason."

"Then," James cocked his head to the side, causing his blonde ponytail to fall over his shoulder. "Is it because of Jerome? Because he loves you?"

Bri groaned, before hanging her head down. "Actually, I hadn't thought of that, but now that's a new reason for me to leave."

George pursed her lips, before collapsing down on Bri's bed. "Then why can't you stay in Britain?"

Sighing, Bri finished taping up her last box then stood up. "It's-it's complicated."

"How so?" Bri shook her head, then felt George wrap her arms around her, and James pat her head. "C'mon, Bri," George whispered, "We're your best friends, you can tell us anything. You know that."

Bri shook her head, again. How could she tell what all had happened to her since she'd transferred here? It would take _years _to properly explain. Plus, now that she was leaving, she just wanted to leave it all behind her.

They just stood like that for a while, hanging onto each other. And, for the first time, Bri realized just how much she missed having friends that understood her completely. Ones that had been with her for as long as she could remember, and would know just how to comfort her even without knowing what was up.

For that moment, everything was pefect.

But, it ended when a voice broke through it all.

"Well, if it isn't the amazing trio."

The three of them turned to see Jerome leaning up against the thresh hold, glaring at them.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

This was the first time that Jerome had really seen or talked to James. The blonde had spent more time with Mick since he got here. (They both were on football teams and loved talking about sports) Plus, they both turned in at different times so one was always asleep before the other got into the house.

And the same went for George. Except that the reason that he never spent time with her was because he'd spent a good time being jealous of her. Which was really stupid now, considering that he knew she was a girl.

"Trudy says it's time to go." he told them.

Bri blinked, before the three of them untangled from each other. "Oh, right." she murmured, before reaching for her bag.

"I have a question," he asked, smirking and sticking a blade of grass in between his teeth. "What is George short for?" the three of them didn't know that he knew that George was a girl, so he decided to play with them.

George's eyes grew wide for second, then she shrugged. "Nothing, really. It's just George."

"Are you sure?" Jerome made his way over to George and pulled her cap off. A mass of red hair came flowing down to her mid back. George gasped and twirled around to face him. "Are you sure it's not short for Georgina?"

James, George and Bri stared at him, all their mouths agape. Jerome smirked back at them, before throwing the cap at George.

"Have fun over in America." he snarled, before walking out.

{Bri's p.o.v}  
{25 minutes later at the airport}

Bri was saying her final goodbyes to the occupants of Anubis. The plane was leaving in twenty minutes which meant that the three of them should be getting on within the next ten.

"I'm going to miss you." Amber cried, tears running down her cheeks, although, surprisingly enough, not messing up her makeup. Bri guessed she was wearing waterproof, well... everything.

"Yeah, me too." Bri smiled, "I don't know what I'll do without you there to criticize my style."

After Amber came everyone else who had their own different goodbyes.

"You're the only girl I've met that can throw a decent toss." -Mick

"I wanted you to teach me more about American culture." -Mara

"Who else am I going to have food fights with?" -Alfie

"Have a good life." -Fabian and Nina (to which, Bri smiled a teary smile before whispering: "Thank you. And don't forget to tell me how your mystery ends.")

Finally, she came to Jerome. He hadn't said anything since they'd seen each other that morning, and Bri was afraid he'd still be mad at her. She didn't wanna leave on bad terms.

But, when she went in front of him, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into a tight hug. Tears welled up in Bri's eyes, then she hugged back.

After about thirty seconds, they pulled away and just stared into each other's eyes.

"Don't go." Jerome whispered.

Bri smiled, the tears finally spilling over. She reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand, before standing up on her tip toes and kissing him lightly on the lips.

"Goodbye." she murmured as she pulled back, before turning around and jogging toward George and James.

With a final wave behind her, the three of them gave their tickets to the flight receptionist person and boarding the plane.

{Jerome's p.o.v}

Jerome placed his hand on the glass and watched as the plane flew away.

* * *

**BeBe: All that's left is the epilogue, now.  
Oh, and the important thing is, I wanna know if I should make a sequel. Please answer yes or no, now, because it'll effect my epilogue.**


	25. Epilogue

Bri bit her lip as she ran her fingers over the bare bed. She shouldn't have been so surprised that they stipped it. It had been a long time since she'd been there.

Tears stung in her eyes, as she looked around the familiar room. No one had been there to meet _her _at the airport, which should've been expected. Especially since no one had known that _she _was returning. But, still, a part of her had hoped...

She shook her head. She couldn't get emotional, now. If she did, what would happen when she met everyone? She had to keep it, together.

Her head snapped up at the sound of a door slamming shut from below. She moved quietly out of the room, before kneeling down on the floor so nobody could see her. How would they react to her come back without telling anyone?

Familiar voices drifted up to her ears, making the tears sting harder. She watched as all of the people but one left to go into the kitchen. A boy with dark blonde hair was left behind, his head hung down.

Bri clenched her hands into fists as she watched the sad scene play out. She clutched onto her sunglasses, before blinking back the tears, and putting a snotty look on her face.

She held out the hand with the sunglasses in it, and dropped them right infront of the boy. Luckily, they didn't break. The boy stared down at them in what she guessed was shocked surprise.

Growing impatient, Bri yelled down, "I hope your not expecting _me _to pick those up!" in a teasing tone.

The boy's head whipped up and Bri was met with the same blue eyes that had haunted her for the many months that she was away.

"Bri..." he whispered.

Bri smirked down at him, placing both hands on her hips. "That's my name. Don't wear it out."

The boy was still staring at her in surprise. "You came back." he whispered, as if he couldn't believe it.

"Seems so." Bri shrugged.

The two of them just stared at each other for a while. Bri felt the annoyance and impatience grow up in her again. Of course, she didn't show it, though.

So, instead, she smiled again. "Aren't you going to give me my sunglasses back? Or do I have to go get them?"

The boy's face broke out into a smile, and he practically sprinted up the stairs. Before Bri had time to react, he'd wrapped his arms around her in a tight bear hug.

"I thought I'd never see you, again." he whispered.

Bri chuckled. "Never is a big word, Jerome." she smiled up at him, "A few weeks after I got back I realized something. Something _big._"

Jerome blinked down at her, confusion written all over his face. Bri had to surpress a sigh from his complete naievette.

"What did you realize?" he asked, after a moment.

Smiling, Bri stood on her tip toes and gently kissed him on the lips. "That." she whispered.

"Oh." Jerome still looked shocked for a moment, before smirking back, and pulling her into a deep kiss. After a few seconds, though, he pulled back. "But, get one thing straight, Brittany Faye," he mock glared down at her. "I've been abandoned too many times by people I care about. So, don't you _dare _try and run off again."

Bri laughed, "I can live with that."

All of a sudden, a slight chill went through her, causing her to shiver. Jerome looked worried, but Bri just smiled, and pulled him back into another kiss.

* * *

**BeBe: THE END! Yeah, I know it's short. Anyway, I'll be posting the sequel here in just a few minutes, so look for that. It's about their kids, and it's called _House of Chills  
_Goodbye, and good luck!**


End file.
